Romania – A new survey by Atu Tech shows that 52.5% or Romanians intend to install solar panels by 2025, but 40% of them would need 3,000 to 4,000 euros to successfully install the systems and start producing electricity for self-consumption.
According to BalkanGreenEnergyNews.com, recent public opinion poll about solar energy shows encouraging trend regarding solar energy in a country already experiencing an unparalleled boom in that field. While in 2019, only 303 households, firms and institutions had a prosumer (contraction of producer and consumer) status, they were 40,000 in 2022 and should be 100,000 by the end of the year.
The study shows that not only 52.5% of Romanians intend to install solar panel systems by 2025, but an additional 24.11% plan to do it by 2028.
The survey was conducted between August and September 2023 with 1,292 respondents over the age of 18, and both from rural and urban areas of Romania. Atu Tech, a company specialised in security systems installation, also provides photovoltaic systems installations, and conducted this survey in order to evaluate the market potentialities.
Subsidies are not the main motivation for installation of solar panels
As energy prices rose in Europe after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, cost reduction and energy independence became the main reasons among respondents for the will to install solar panel systems. Meantime, only 16% of respondents named subsidies as their main motivation to do so. Roughly 40% of respondents also think that an investment of 3,000 to 4,000 euros is needed but enough to reach the status of prosumer. Meantime, 42% are in favour of a hybrid system, meaning they would remain connected to the grid while they could technically remain independent in case of outages.
2 billions of subsidies
The Romanian government pushes its population to reach the status of prosumer in order to reach a higher level of resilience and lower carbon emissions. Therefore, Prime Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciucă said in March this year that the government planned to bring the subsidies for households up to 2 billions euros. An estimated 80,000 beneficiaries could use this money to reach the status of prosumers.
