Romania's Biggest Mall Owner Now Makes Its Own Power: NEPI Rockcastle Opens a Second 56 MW Solar Park
NEPI Rockcastle opened a 56.2 MW solar park in Prahova and expects its own plants to cover 31% of its electricity by the end of 2026.
A shopping centre group with no energy business now owns two utility-scale solar parks in Romania. Here is why the own-build route, not a PPA, is worth a closer look for large electricity buyers.
NEPI Rockcastle, the largest owner and operator of shopping centres in Central and Eastern Europe, has inaugurated its second photovoltaic park in Romania. The 56.2 MW plant at Ariceștii Rahtivani (Nedelea), Prahova County, was built together with Global Technical Systems (GTS) and is expected to produce about 73,000 MWh a year, equal to the annual use of more than 40,000 Romanian households.
The group behind Promenada and Mega Mall in Bucharest now expects its own renewable sources to cover 31% of its total electricity consumption by the end of 2026, up from 6% two years ago.
“Green energy investments help us increase the efficiency and resilience of our portfolio,” said Andrei Radu, Group Development Director at NEPI Rockcastle.
What was built
- 75.5 hectares on a former mineral aggregate extraction site, with local farmers’ sheep grazing between the panel rows.
- More than 90,000 bifacial N-type i-TOPCon panels, with efficiency of up to 23% and a 30-year production guarantee.
- Around 17,000 tonnes of CO2 avoided each year, according to the company.
- Part of a green energy programme with a budget of more than €100 million for photovoltaic capacity across the region.
Two parks in twelve months
The Prahova plant follows the group’s first greenfield park, the 54.1 MW Chișineu-Criș project in Arad County, inaugurated in October 2025. Together with rooftop systems on its shopping centres, the two parks form the core of a portfolio that the group planned at 159 MW of photovoltaic capacity in 2025.
On storage, the facts are narrower than earlier plans suggested. In 2025, the company said its Romanian parks were designed to include batteries. At inauguration, no battery is installed at Nedelea, but the park has its own transformer station, which allows a battery energy storage system to be added later without a new grid connection procedure.
Momentum Energy’s View
Own-build is now a real alternative to a PPA. Most large buyers in Romania meet green targets through power purchase agreements. NEPI Rockcastle took the developer route instead and owns the asset outright. For a company with land access, a long horizon and a predictable load, that removes counterparty risk and keeps the value of the plant on its own balance sheet.
The 6% to 31% jump is the number to watch. Moving a quarter of a pan-regional retail portfolio’s electricity onto self-owned generation in two years shows how fast a non-energy company can change its energy profile once it decides to build at utility scale. It is the same logic we see in industrial self-consumption, one order of magnitude up.
Storage is the next decision. A battery-ready substation means the group can add storage when evening price spreads justify it, without a new grid procedure. Retail and real estate owners with similar load profiles should design their sites the same way, and that decision belongs in the EPC scope from the first drawing, not after commissioning. Momentum Energy will follow whether NEPI Rockcastle adds a BESS at Nedelea.
Sources and references
Organisations and documents cited in this article.
- The Diplomat Bucharest: NEPI Rockcastle inaugurates its second photovoltaic park in Romania (28 October 2026)
- Energynomics: 56.2 MW photovoltaic park in Ariceștii Rahtivani, developed by NEPI Rockcastle together with GTS (October 2026)
- Romania Insider: Romania's largest shopping mall owner launches 56 MW PV park (29 October 2026)
- SeeNews: NEPI Rockcastle commissions 56 MW solar park in Romania (28 October 2026)
- Romania Insider: NEPI Rockcastle to deploy 54.1 MW solar park in western Romania under EUR 110 mln programme (7 July 2025)
- The Diplomat Bucharest: interview with Andrei Radu, Group Development Director, NEPI Rockcastle (2025)
- StartupCafe: NEPI Rockcastle a inaugurat un nou parc fotovoltaic în România (October 2026)
