Romania has approved a formal mechanism that allows electricity consumers, suppliers and aggregators to receive payments for reducing demand when the power system needs flexibility. The framework goes beyond conventional generation-side balancing by creating a route for demand-side participation in system needs.
Under the regulation approved by ANRE in August, controllable consumption is treated as a market product. Eligible participants can submit voluntary load reductions, and remuneration applies to accepted and verified reductions. The payments are handled through a mechanism operated with Transelectrica.
Demand flexibility as a new balancing resource
For Southeast Europe, the change extends beyond Romania’s borders. The regional electricity transition has so far been shaped mainly by investment in supply, including solar, wind, hydro, batteries and interconnections. Demand has largely remained passive in that build-out.
Romania is now introducing a structure that enables industrial consumers, commercial loads and aggregators to participate directly in system balancing. This creates an additional flexibility option alongside generation and batteries. In practice, it adds another set of resources that can be called on during tight system conditions.
How evening scarcity is addressed
When electricity becomes scarce during evening peaks, the system traditionally relies on three options: increasing production, importing electricity or discharging storage. Demand flexibility adds a fourth option by temporarily reducing consumption. The approach is used where the economic cost of reducing demand is lower than producing another megawatt-hour.
For large industrial consumers, shifting consumption can create an additional revenue stream tied to flexibility needs. A steel mill, cement producer, cold-storage operator, data centre, pumping station or other flexible industrial facility may not need permanent reductions. Instead, operations can be shifted by an hour or two when system conditions tighten.
Role of aggregators and battery storage
Aggregators may become important because many individual consumers are too small to participate efficiently on their own. By pooling multiple loads, an aggregator can build a portfolio capable of bidding meaningful capacity into flexibility markets. This structure links smaller demand sites to market participation requirements.
The mechanism also complements Romania’s rapidly expanding battery energy storage systems (BESS). BESS can respond in milliseconds and provide frequency-control services, while flexible consumers may be better suited for longer-duration load reductions. Together, they serve different parts of the flexibility stack.
Timing linked to solar ramps and regional implications
Romania’s timing is tied to changing generation patterns as solar capacity grows quickly. Low-price midday periods are increasingly followed by sharp evening ramps. As renewable penetration increases, the market needs more assets able to respond to the gap between midday abundance and evening scarcity.
Demand-side participation can reduce how much new generation must be kept available solely for peak periods. It may also lower balancing costs as flexibility needs are met through both supply-side and demand-side actions.
Broader adoption of this model would shift how electricity markets reward resources toward flexibility rather than only consumption levels. Romania could be setting an approach that Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia and other SEE systems eventually follow.
The next phase of the regional electricity transition will depend not only on who can generate electricity. It will also depend on who can stop consuming it and at what price during moments when the system requires flexibility.
