Romania is increasingly positioned as Southeast Europe’s battery-financing testbed, with activity moving beyond announcements of new battery projects. Recent transactions and policy support point to how large-scale energy storage can be financed in practice. The latest evidence was provided by financing arrangements for Econergy’s Părău 2 and Romania’s Modernisation Fund programme.
Financing for Econergy’s Părău 2 solar-plus-storage project
Econergy’s Părău 2 project secured a financing package of approximately €229 million. The funding was arranged with a group of six banks and financial institutions. The development combines 342 MWp of solar capacity with a 150 MW battery energy storage system within the same project structure.
The financing consortium includes the EBRD, Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, Exim Banca Românească, NLB, OTP, and the Intesa Sanpaolo/PBZ group. This transaction is presented as evidence that battery energy storage systems are moving from an emerging technology segment toward an established infrastructure investment class.
Policy support under Romania’s Modernisation Fund for batteries
Romania launched a €150 million Modernisation Fund programme aimed at at least 2,174 MWh of new battery storage capacity. Financial support is capped at €69,000/MWh and €15 million per company. Projects are ranked partly based on the amount of state aid requested per unit of storage capacity.
The programme operates alongside private financing developments in Romania’s battery market. MetaWealth disclosed approximately €19 million in financing for its Dumbrava BESS, a 50 MW/100 MWh project in Neamț county. The disclosure is described as the first financial close in the company’s Romanian battery storage programme.
Lender focus on revenue visibility and market participation
Lenders’ central challenge remains revenue visibility for battery energy storage systems. Unlike wind or solar projects supported by long-term fixed-price contracts, battery storage can earn from multiple revenue streams that may vary over time. These include day-ahead arbitrage, intraday optimisation, balancing services, ancillary markets, and contractual optimisation of renewable generation.
The ability to access several potential value sources depends on market structure. Romania has a large electricity system, a rapidly expanding solar and wind fleet, interconnections with neighbouring markets including Hungary and Bulgaria, and an increasingly active balancing market. These factors shape how operators can combine revenue mechanisms rather than relying on a single income stream.
Shift toward commercially financed storage across Southeast Europe
The next phase of Romania’s storage development may be more significant than the current subsidy-supported pipeline. If projects increasingly reach financial close with lower levels of public support and greater reliance on commercially generated revenues, Romania could develop a repeatable financing model for large-scale storage across Southeast Europe. This would involve demonstrating that BESS can generate sufficiently predictable revenues to be financed as conventional infrastructure assets.
The change would shift attention from proving deployment at scale to establishing bankability based on revenue predictability. For Southeast Europe, this could mark the point where battery storage becomes a permanent and increasingly bankable part of the region’s electricity infrastructure rather than remaining primarily an emerging technology opportunity.
