Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) in Romania: Types, Rules and What Lenders Check

A power purchase agreement (PPA) is a long-term contract in which a company agrees to buy electricity from a specific power plant, or to settle the value of that output, at a price and on terms fixed in advance. For a wind or solar plant it is one of three revenue routes in the Romanian energy market, alongside the state’s Contracts for Difference and merchant sales on OPCOM. Romania has fully allowed directly negotiated PPAs only since the end of 2021, and the deals covered in this guide, with buyers such as Apple, OMV Petrom and Bekaert, run for 8.5 to 10 years where the term was disclosed.

What is a PPA (power purchase agreement)?

A PPA is signed between a generator, usually the project company that owns the plant, and an offtaker: an industrial consumer, a technology group, a supplier or a trader. It fixes the price, the volume and its daily profile, the term, delivery, guarantees of origin, imbalance responsibility, credit support and the consequences of default.

Both sides are hedging: the generator gets contracted revenue it can show a bank, and the buyer a known cost and, in a renewable PPA, proof of origin. The benchmark for both is the day-ahead price on OPCOM’s PZU market: a PPA is worth what it saves or costs each party against what the same energy would have fetched in the same 15-minute intervals.

Physical, virtual, corporate and utility PPAs

In a physical PPA the electricity is delivered into the buyer’s portfolio, directly if the buyer is active on the wholesale market or through its supplier. DRI’s contracts with OMV Petrom, covering electricity and guarantees of origin from three solar parks, are described by DRI as the largest physical solar PPA signed in Romania.

In a virtual (financial) PPA no power changes hands. The generator sells its output on the market and the parties settle the difference between the agreed price and the market price, with the buyer usually receiving the guarantees of origin. The buyer can therefore sit in another country: Bulgaria’s Etem Gestamp signed a 10-year virtual PPA in March 2026 for power from Rezolv Energy’s VIFOR wind farm in Buzău County. The limit is reporting: under the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, guarantees of origin and virtual PPAs are not accepted as proof of lower electricity emissions, as our analysis of corporate PPAs and hourly matching explains.

The buyer matters too. A corporate PPA is signed by the end consumer, such as a manufacturer or a technology company. A utility PPA is signed by a supplier, trader or energy group that resells the power or uses it in its own portfolio.

Pay-as-produced, baseload or shaped: who carries the volume risk

• Pay-as-produced: the buyer takes all the output, or an agreed share of it, whenever the plant produces. The seller carries no shortfall risk; the buyer takes on the plant’s profile.
• Baseload: the seller delivers the same volume in every hour. A solar or wind plant cannot do that alone, so the seller must buy the missing energy on the market or firm it with storage or other assets.
• Shaped (profiled): the volume follows an agreed curve, such as the buyer’s consumption or the most expensive hours.

In Romania the choice matters. From March to September 2026, peak hours (9-20) were cheaper than off-peak hours on the day-ahead market in every month, and in 23 of the 42 weeks OPCOM reported up to 18 October at least one 15-minute interval cleared below zero. A pay-as-produced solar PPA gives the buyer the cheapest hours, while a baseload commitment forces the seller to buy expensive evening power. That is why sellers increasingly add storage, as we showed in our analysis of negative power prices and BESS.

Fixed or indexed: how a PPA price is set

A fixed-price PPA sets one price per MWh for the whole term, or a price that rises on an agreed schedule. An indexed PPA links the price to inflation, to a market index such as the day-ahead price (often with a discount, a floor or a cap) or to both. A fixed price gives the buyer certainty and the lender a clean revenue line; indexation shares inflation and market risk.

Romanian PPA prices are negotiated privately and rarely published; none of the deals in this guide disclosed one. Three public references frame the negotiation:

• CfD strike prices: in round 2 (August 2025) solar averaged EUR 40.46/MWh (range EUR 35.50 to 45.20) and wind EUR 73.8/MWh (EUR 65.17 to 79.5); round 3 awarded wind at EUR 59.95 to 74.9/MWh. They are adjusted for inflation only every three years, and only if cumulative inflation exceeds 10%.
• The day-ahead price: the monthly PZU average ranged in 2026 from EUR 95.55/MWh in April to EUR 176.14/MWh in September; the 2025 average was EUR 108.16/MWh.
• Forward contracts on OPCOM: in September 2026, contracts traded on the PCCB-LE-flex platform for delivery that month averaged EUR 114.07/MWh (weighted).

Current figures are on our PPAs and electricity prices page.

PPA rules in Romania: from the 2012 ban to direct negotiation

From 2012, Article 23 of Energy Law 123/2012 required wholesale electricity transactions to take place on centralised markets, which ruled out PPAs negotiated directly between a generator and a buyer. A 2020 exception for new capacity was never relied on by market participants or banks, according to pv magazine. The ban ended with Government Emergency Ordinance 143/2021 of 28 December 2021, which transposed the EU electricity directive, removed the obligation to trade exclusively on centralised markets and expressly allowed directly negotiated bilateral PPAs. State-owned producers remained obliged to sell part of their output on centralised platforms.

The energy crisis then showed how quickly rules can change. Household electricity prices were capped until June 2025, and from January 2023 Government Emergency Ordinance 153/2022 introduced a centralised purchase mechanism (MACEE), set to run for 27 months, in which OPCOM acted as single buyer at a regulated 450 lei/MWh. This is why change-in-law clauses carry weight in Romanian PPAs.

EU rules now push the other way. Regulation (EU) 2024/1747, in force since 16 July 2024, requires Member States to encourage PPAs and to provide instruments, such as guarantee schemes at market prices, that reduce the risk of buyer default; after a three-year transition, direct price support for new wind, solar, geothermal, run-of-river hydro and nuclear plants must take the form of two-way CfDs or equivalent schemes.

OPCOM platforms for long-term contracts

Since the end of 2021 the parties can negotiate directly or use a platform run by OPCOM, the electricity market operator. The platforms offer a public, competitive process; direct negotiation allows clauses tailored to one plant and one buyer.

• PCCB-LE-flex: extended auctions in which an initiator proposes a contract and others respond, with standardised delivery profiles, delivery periods of at least one month and a mandatory framework contract.
• PCCB-NC and PC-OTC: centralised markets where bilateral contracts are traded through continuous negotiation.
• PCTL: a centralised market for awarding long-term electricity contracts, regulated by ANRE (Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority) Order 129/2020. Sellers are companies that will build and connect new generation capacity; buyers are licence holders and final customers; delivery lasts at least one calendar year. The initiator proposes the full contract, and the process runs through an initiating offer with creditworthiness criteria, pre-selection, a competitive dialogue on terms other than price and an online auction, as described on OPCOM’s PCTL page.

Balancing responsibility and guarantees of origin

A participant on OPCOM’s markets must hold balancing responsibility itself or transfer it to a balance responsible party. Deviations between notified and actual production or consumption are settled on the balancing market run by Transelectrica, at the cost of the balance responsible party. A PPA must therefore state who notifies schedules, who forecasts output and who pays for imbalances; even in a pay-as-produced contract, the cost of forecast errors has to be allocated explicitly.

Guarantees of origin (GOs) prove that a megawatt-hour came from renewable sources. Under Government Emergency Ordinance 59/2025, one GO represents 1 MWh, is valid for 12 months from production and expires after 18 months if not cancelled; supported producers follow separate rules to avoid double financing. Romanian GOs can for now be used only in Romania. ANRE obtained observer status at the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB), which runs the European certificate system, at the end of November 2025, and in October 2026 the AIB lists it as a scheme observer. The ordinance set 30 September 2026 for ANRE’s secondary rules and targets full operation of an EU-recognised market from 1 January 2027; our analysis of guarantees of origin explains what cross-border transfer would change for PPAs.

PPA, CfD or merchant sales: comparison

	PPA	CfD	Merchant sales (PZU)
Counterparty	Corporate buyer, supplier or trader	OPCOM as CfD counterparty, from a EUR 3 billion Modernisation Fund budget	OPCOM, counterparty to every PZU trade
Price	Negotiated, usually confidential	Auction strike price, settled both ways against a PZU-based reference price	PZU price in each 15-minute interval
Term	Negotiated (8.5 to 10 years in announced deals)	15 years	None
Access	Any time, if a buyer is found	Auction rounds only (three held, December 2024 to December 2025)	Any time, as a registered participant
Negative prices	As set in the contract	No difference payment in negative-price intervals	Full exposure

For a plant holding a Contract for Difference, the room for a PPA is narrow. The CfD contract published by OPCOM requires all output to be sold only on organised electricity markets, as defined in the Energy Law; a sale outside them is grounds for termination, and any excess profit from bilateral contracts established by ANRE is paid to OPCOM each year. Combinations happen at plant or portfolio level instead: DRI sells half of its 126 MWp Văcărești park’s output to OMV Petrom from January 2027 and leaves the other half exposed to the market.

Who signs PPAs in Romania

Seller and plant	Buyer	Type	Term	Volume
Nala Renewables, Green Breeze wind farm (99.2 MW, Galați)	Apple	Long-term PPA	Not disclosed	Not disclosed; the plant produces about 312 GWh a year
DRI (DTEK), Glodeni I and II and Văcărești solar parks	OMV Petrom	Physical, electricity and GOs	8.5 years	About 100 GWh a year: 62% of Glodeni from January 2026, 50% of Văcărești from January 2027
Rezolv Energy, VIFOR wind farm (Buzău, 461 MW planned)	Bekaert	Virtual	10 years	100 GWh a year (signed July 2024)
Rezolv Energy, VIFOR wind farm	Etem Gestamp (Bulgaria)	Virtual, cross-border	10 years	Not disclosed (signed March 2026)

The buyers are global technology companies (Apple), industrial groups seeking price stability and lower emissions (Bekaert, Etem Gestamp) and integrated energy groups that also supply electricity (OMV Petrom). The contracts also support financing: Green Breeze was financed by BCR and Erste Group, and Văcărești by non-recourse loans of up to EUR 60 million from UniCredit and Garanti BBVA. More in our articles on the Green Breeze wind farm and DTEK’s Romanian portfolio.

What lenders check in a PPA

A bank lending against a PPA reads it as part of the credit case:

• Counterparty credit: the buyer’s financial strength over the term, parent guarantees or letters of credit, and the consequences of a downgrade. The guarantee schemes required by the EU regulation target this risk.
• Tenor: how much of the loan’s life the contract covers and how much revenue is left exposed to the market afterwards.
• Volume and shape risk: who bears a production shortfall, any baseload or profile obligation and the cost of replacement power.
• Price and indexation: a fixed price is easier to model; an indexed one needs a view on inflation or market prices, and a floor or cap changes the downside.
• Change in law: who carries new taxes, levies or market interventions, a live question after the 2022-2025 crisis measures.
• Curtailment: whether the buyer pays for energy lost when the grid operator orders a reduction, and whether the seller may cut output for economic reasons.
• Negative prices: whether delivery and payment stop in negative-price intervals. The CfD makes no difference payment in those intervals, and the European day-ahead price floor fell to EUR -600/MWh from the 28 May 2026 trading session.
• GOs, balancing and termination: certificate transfer, imbalance costs, the termination payment and lenders’ step-in rights through a direct agreement, a mechanism the CfD contract itself provides for.

Our article on who is underwriting Romanian solar shows which banks finance such plants, and our renewable energy glossary explains the other market terms.

Momentum Energy’s view

We see PPAs, CfDs and merchant sales as tools to be combined rather than alternatives, and in 2026 the deciding variable is the profile: when a plant produces matters as much as how much. A PPA negotiated on annual volume and a single price, without clear clauses on negative prices, curtailment and change in law, transfers risks that one of the parties has not priced.

We recommend modelling any PPA on 15-minute profiles against the PZU and the CfD benchmarks before negotiating the price. We track these markets in our regulatory and market intelligence work, and our energy trading service, which will include PPA structuring, is starting soon; both sit alongside EPC and O&M in our services.

Sources and references

Organisations and documents cited in this article.

1. pv magazine: Romania authorizes bilateral PPAs, raises size limit for solar under net metering to 400kW (13 January 2022)
2. BRCC: Overview of the recent amendment of the Energy Law by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 143/2021 (14 January 2022)
3. Financial Intelligence: ANRE, legea permite încheierea de contracte bilaterale (26 septembrie 2022)
4. Transelectrica: current report on the contract with OPCOM under the centralised purchase mechanism MACEE, GEO 153/2022 (10 January 2023)
5. OPCOM: Electricity markets and trading platforms
6. OPCOM: PCCB-LE-flex, presentation
7. OPCOM: PCTL, Centralised Market for awarding Long Term Electricity Contracts, presentation
8. OPCOM: PCTL regulation and procedures (ANRE Order 129/2020, amended by Order 27/2021)
9. OPCOM: Contract for Difference, consolidated form after Government Decision 1013/2025
10. European Parliament, Legislative Observatory: Union's electricity market design, Regulation (EU) 2024/1747 (summary)
11. EY Romania: Garanțiile de origine în România, ce aduce OUG 59/2025 (February 2026)
12. AIB: AIB members
13. Bekaert: Bekaert and Rezolv Energy sign 100 GWh wind Power Purchase Agreement in Romania (4 July 2024)
14. The Diplomat Bucharest: Etem Gestamp and Rezolv Energy sign landmark Bulgaria-Romania power purchase agreement (30 March 2026)
15. Revista Biz: OMV Petrom a încheiat cea mai mare tranzacție de tip physical PPA din România (5 February 2025)
16. ANRE (Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority)
17. Transelectrica (transmission system operator)
18. OPCOM (Romanian power exchange)
19. EU Modernisation Fund (European Commission, Climate Action)