How Romania is Beating Western Europe on Solar & Storage

On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Gijsbert Huijink, co-founder of SOL Romania, to unpack why Romania might just be Europe’s most underrated solar and battery market.

Gijsbert shares hard-won lessons from developing 1 GW+ of projects—from grid hacks and battery-first strategies to why Romania is moving faster than Germany or the Netherlands on BESS deployment.

They discuss:

• Why Romania is a sleeper hit for hybrid projects

• The “cooperative-to-gigawatt” journey behind SOL Romania

• Grid access, flexibility, and why BESS is easier in Bucharest than Berlin

• The downsides of poorly run CAPEX subsidies

• How they permitted a 350 MWp hybrid plant in under 12 months

• What other countries can learn from Romania’s pragmatism

• Why their team will stop at 1 GW and go windsurfing

⚡

Guest & Soliverse Links:

🌐 SOL Renewables Romania: https://www.solrenewables.ro

🔗 Gijsbert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gijsberthuijink/

🎧 Soliverse on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6C2HVmlEcsFXJqzxlfT9uA

🌐 Website: https://soliverse.energy

🔗 Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpongraczsaas/

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Transcript

0:00

the expectations for the next five years, between solar and wind, we'll see about eight, nine, even 10 Gigawatts of new projects getting connected in Romania Gijsbert nice to see you. Welcome to the show. Thanks Peter, good to meet you here. So Gijsbert built one of the companies who are quite unique in a sense that you are building both large scale solar and also storage type of projects. For people who don't know SOL renewables, what's the story behind you guys and why did you actually decide to start developing in Romania? Okay, it's a longer story, but I've been in renewable since about 2010. I started in Spain. I was one of the founders of a renewable energy cooperative in Spain, Soma Energía. and for Somenechia I worked on solar, wind, biogas and small hydro and energy retailing. And with that experience I have always been very active in the Romanian markets where I have other professional activities. And so I took that experience from Spain to the Romanian market. That was about 2018, 2019. What you could see at that time was that in Spain after the first wave of renewables, which kind of ended in 2012, you had four or five years of no activity at all. The market was completely dead and all the Spanish companies either died or they went abroad to do other projects. Turkey, companies went, I know some companies went to Asia, others to South America. But then you could see at the end of that decade that the Spanish market was getting alive again, becoming active and project development was picking up again. The value of projects was picking up again and projects were starting to be built again. In Romania, that wasn't happening at that time. It was kind of still a dead market. Romania also had a first wave, which lasted till 2014. Exactly like in Spain with retroactive cuts and changes in the remuneration scheme for renewables. So investors were pissed off. and then five, six, seven years of no activity, no new projects being developed. But you could see that due to the price developments for renewables and the fact that you basically don't need any subsidies anymore for a project to be viable. it would also start to make sense to do something for project development to happen again in Romania. Romania was just lagging a few years behind the Spanish market. So I first went back to Romania and with my experience with the cooperative, we set up an energy cooperative in Romania. That was quite a challenge. we managed to set it up, we managed to set up an energy supply business and then the whole energy crisis came of 21-22 with the war in Ukraine and enormous price hikes on the market. were a small player and we started with just when that was happening we had about 40 gigawatt hours of volume in the market and after about one year we said you know we can't do this anymore we don't have the the cash flow to keep doing it, the government imposed maximum pricing and we said, okay, stop. We better tell our clients to go find a new supplier and we close the business voluntarily before we hit the wall and are closed by force. So we stopped that. and then took a step back and wanted to do some, but you could see that the renewables market was getting started at that moment in Romania because the prices were high and it made totally sense. Everybody wanted to have projects, but there were no projects on the market because nobody did any developments the years before. So at that time we said, let's do some development. And I joined forces with two friends that were also active in the energy cooperative, Victor and Jan, and took we set up Sol as our own business with the idea to do a few maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 megawatts of solar projects in Romania. That was our initial ambition and idea. That was almost four years ago. Then from that moment... We quickly discovered that if you develop a project, if it's a 1 megawatt or 100 megawatt project, at least in the Romanian market from an effort point of view, it's more or less the same. There's no big difference in the kind of permits you need to bring to the table between those type of projects. made much more sense to go for bigger projects than for smaller projects. So we did a few of those smaller projects. They were very good learning experience for us. We sold these now last year and the year before to some Turkish investors. And then we focused on some bigger projects. And two of these bigger projects are around 50 megawatts. One is a standalone BESS, the other is a hybrid project BESS with 74 megawatt peak solar and these projects are under due diligence right now with an international investor. And then we have some big projects that are on the market right now. So these are, it's one is a hybrid project also 200 megawatts BESS and up to 350 megawatt peak solar. And the other one is a standalone BESS of 365 megawatts. So you guys are scrolling rather quickly, so... and also on the battery side it's quite difficult to switch and get to those levels of batteries, right? From one day to the other, almost. It didn't feel like very difficult because the whole permitting process is basically the same. in fact, I realize this depends probably a lot on which market you're operating in. But from a Romanian permitting point of view, in order to start a application for a project, you don't need to present a lot, but you do need to present sufficient land in order to develop the project. So if you have, let's say, megawatt peak solar project, need to be able to present, you can squeeze in the panels a bit in the first phase and exaggerate it a bit, but let's say you have to present 100 hectares of land to justify the project. But as we all know, for Bess you don't need so much land, you only need a few hectares. So that's relatively simple in a country like Romania, where it's quite a big country, there's a lot of land available. The land is generally not very expensive unless you get really into urban areas. And then the whole... process for permitting is the same as for solar. So it wasn't that complicated for us. I would even say, and now we get to, think, a big difference between Romania and some Western countries that I know, because I have some friends that also do project development there. like the Netherlands and Germany, where I see that the whole process is way more complicated than it is in Romania. Not just for renewables. If I look at the Netherlands, think anything, to get anything built in the Netherlands is kind of a nightmare from a permitting point of view at this moment. Even if you get a permit, there's always somebody who's complaining and will start legal proceedings against you. and you either have to negotiate with them and give them part of the cake or you have to prepare for several years in court. all, I think, projects, if you can do a wind project in six, seven years, you've done extremely well. And then only one out of four five projects will be able to make it. The other four are lost on the way. Whereas in Romania, both from a societal point of view, there is relatively low resistance to new renewable projects. From a permitting point of view, local authorities are open to it. They usually give you the permits in, you know, if they have 30 days, they give it to you with 30 days. And even if it takes a bit longer, they... they'll apologize for not hitting the 30 days limitation. So it's very different. We've done, I think, one project. It will take us about 12 months from the first signing of the initial land to getting the grid connection and getting the building permits. And we've done both processes in parallel. because we were quite certain we would get the grid connection on that spot and we already started working on the permitting while that wasn't confirmed yet. I think 12 months is something in other countries people can only dream about. But this is as good as it gets. Usually it's between let's one and two years. Yeah, of course, but I mean, that's still a record compared to anywhere in Western Europe. And why do you think that is? What are the kind of key components of being able to move a project faster in Romania than in other countries? Is it the accessibility of the land? Is it a kind of mindset of the people or the local government to support renewables or what's kind of the secret sauce? Well, there is one secret sauce and that especially has been important now for the latest wave of renewables of the BESS projects is that the TSO recognizes the value of BESS and they change some grid calculation, grid access calculations to really facilitate the entry of BESS projects. And that led to a new wave of projects. So in some European countries, what my friends have told me is that if you want to have, let's say, production project, you need to take into account other production projects. And that's your limiting factor. If you want to consume in the market, your limitation is other consumers in the area and that's your limiting factor. But if you want with the best to have both consumption and production, then you're screwed because you have double limitations. Whereas in Romania, they kind of consider that the best will adapt this behavior and will facilitate And let's say we'll consume whenever it's good to consume and we'll produce whenever it's good to produce. This is a bit naive, I think, and it will not be valid for 100 % of the situation that we were getting to. But taking that as a starting point, made adapting your calculation method to this. made it possible for lot of projects to get a grid connection without grid reinforcements and under very good conditions. And they have a clear goal to have 5GW at 20GWh of BESS connected by 2030. And this is for an energy system where average demand is between 5 and 10GW. So if you would translate that to... I don't know, the German market, I the German market is about eight times bigger. It would be equivalent to 40 gigawatts by 2030 for the German market. And if I look at some forecasts from different consultancies, I think all of them are about 10, 13, 15 gigawatts in the German markets. They don't expect much more than that. And I looked at those... predictions for a while and they couldn't understand why. Isn't there more ambition? Don't they need storage? You see the enormous profitability, but the ambition is there, I think they need it. It's just the whole permitting part, which is blocked. that's where the big difference comes in. I think at the moment in Romania, there is a can do mentality. This probably comes from the fact that Romania only opened up as an economy in the 90s. The first decade in the 90s was kind of wasted. They were still, let's say, half communist and not really moving. So they only started moving from 2000. And there's still a bit of a catch-up mentality. Whereas in... What I see in the Netherlands, it's I have rights mentality and very cautious approach to anything new that might disrupt whatever we already have going. So the latest I heard from a developer in the Netherlands that the... the the the local authority said okay you want to place bass but it's going to take up let's say volume space in the landscape and in order to do so there are some old industrial buildings nearby so you should take those down and then compensate and which you know if you have to start doing these kind of things first of all it's I don't know, for me is really stretching the point. know, we are at war. We want to have energy independence. We have a full energy transition to take care of. And then you worry about a few containers on a piece of land where if you don't want to see them, you oblige the developer to put a uh green area around it. And I would say problem solved, right? So it's just too many people with an opinion that want to have and this really screws up your project development. It's really complicated if you have to do all these kind of things and it becomes very expensive. And then they start complaining that the end-to-end transition is expensive. you want it to be cheap, you have to have a good set of rules, a good long-term policy, and a clear timeline for everything in order to be able to move further. And if this is lacking, then yes, it's going to be expensive. Everything is going to be expensive. And sometimes I have the feeling that us in Europe, you know, we like to regulate even before we start anything. So first we start about making rules for the things that we haven't even built. And then it takes, as you mentioned, much longer, much, much costlier. And then by the time we actually would get to the goal, it's so difficult for the company to actually produce everything and minding all the rules that it's virtually impossible, right? Exactly, that's also my sentiment a bit. And then on the other hand, what they've done in the Netherlands and in Germany and also in the UK is to allow anyone without any commitment to apply for a BESS allocation, which led to hundreds of gigawatts of BESS being, let's say, or BESS capacity being demanded by all kinds of developers. And if I as a developer, would do the same, you know, I don't have to do anything. I just have to send you an email or a letter and then claim, you know, my spot in the waiting line or everywhere I want without having any commitment. Yeah, sure. You know, I'll send you 50 letters with 50 projects of a hundred megawatt each. That's easy. then you have a problem because how can you differentiate one good project from a bad project? You really can't. All the letters are looking the same. And there are a lot of developers who of course don't have the capital to build the project themselves. So how are you going to differentiate them? And you see now, UK already started, I think last year, of separating and putting, but that's a lot of work if you have to do it. after you created the queue, right? And then you get people who are in the queue and you tell them, look, you're not in the first category, but you're in the third category. And they say, no, no, we don't agree. They complain and they say, we should be in the second category. And then you have a review process and it's such a waste of effort and time. And if they only would have said, from the beginning, they would have been clear on the capacities available and say, okay, you can make your application, but you have to put in, I don't know, a thousand, 5,000, 10,000, whatever euros per megawatt. And that's your guarantee. If you finally don't continue with the project, you get your grid connection, but you don't continue, then this is the money you lose. Then as a developer, you start developing seriously. and you put, you have skin in the game. So you're going to say, these 50 projects that I have in mind, and this is the budget that I have that I can, let's say, play with. Which three projects am I going to go for? And then it becomes interesting and then it becomes valuable for society also. Now it's just a big of lots of papers that are getting shuffled between parties, lots of noise. and lots of wasted hours, too little results. Yeah, and I guess if you even add the overheads on trying to evaluate those by any type of metric, it's actually just a waste of time and waste of work from the evaluator side as well. Exactly. No, I've one German TSO and I think it was posted on LinkedIn 10, 15 days ago. They've now introduced a 50,000 euros, let's say review fee. And they've told all the projects, look, if you want us to seriously review your application, this is the cost. And if you have a big best project and you believe in the project, know, 50,000 is... These are projects with a hundred million, let's say, hundred million euros investment, 50,000 euros is peanuts, you know, you can pay it. And I think the first result was that about two thirds of the projects kind of dropped out of the line. And that's the first step. But then they still have to review all those projects and come back with valuable feedback. And then on what criteria are you, you still have to prioritize. one project over another and how are you going to do that? And how are you going to do that in a way that is acceptable to all the participants because you didn't establish some rules and commonly agreed rules or imposed rules from the beginning. How are you going to them to agree the rules of the game after you started the game? You know, it's much better to start the game with some clear rules from the beginning. Yeah, it gets quite tricky. busy. then, you know, on the permitting, you have local authorities that are completely unprepared for these kinds of projects. They don't have the expertise to judge if this is a good best project or a solar project or not. So they take their time. They get external consultants in. And that also, you know, delays everything a lot of delays everything. And what we see in Romania, and it's not always good, but for the speed of development, there's a lot of indifference from the local authorities. They're happy that something is happening over there and they don't really care so much. is that, let's say as a government, is that a sensible approach? Maybe not, maybe you should be more in control. But all of these projects, still need to be insured. All of these projects still need bank finance. So in a way, the insurers and the bankers, they will do the work for the government. Because if you have a badly constructed or whatever project that is below standards, you will not be able to get your insurance. You will not be able to get your bank finance. Finally, for the type of projects that being built and the quality of the projects that are being built, if the local government has, let's say, a clear opinion on it or not, it doesn't matter that much. in my view. But this is what's happening in Romania right now and this is why I think Romania at this moment, took a while to get on Steam. So project development only really took off about four years ago and these projects are now reaching, they've passed the investment, final investment decision and they're now reaching the market, they're on the construction, they're getting grid connected. And I think for the expectations for the next five years, between solar and wind, we'll see about eight, nine, even 10 Gigawatts of new projects getting connected in Romania And that for a market between five and 10 giga is quite a lot. Yeah, it's still better than the European average and I was just talking to a good friend of mine, Andreas Back and he has a good overview of the European market and you know how much is there in the pipeline and he said that basically we have a pipeline of 1.7 terawatts in the pipeline. But as you said, know, maybe it's just a paper application, maybe it's something that's legitimate. So how do you differentiate and how do you speed it up? And from other people on the show, I actually heard that the couple of keywords that are coming back every single episode, flexibility, grid, that's holding us back. And then this year, you know, it's storage and hybrid projects. These are the three keywords that are coming back from every single angle of the market. Well, I'll give you another example what makes Romania I think a bit different. One of the projects we have on the due diligence now, the hybrid project. We signed the lands and we started development initially as a solar project with the idea, okay, we'll add some kind of battery where we're just starting to think about batteries at that time in Romania. I the whole market only started to think about two years ago about batteries in Romania and I think most other European markets besides from Great Britain. So we filed for a solar grid connection and then you have certain calculation rules. You have to make a solution study, as they call it. You pay for this as a developer in Romania. It costs you about 30, 40, 50,000 euros depending with whom you collaborate and you get your study back. And in our case, s**t We were connecting on 110 kilovolt line, but there was another project who kind of took the line three months before us. similar sized project. So normally your product is dead at that moment. There was no, there's no other line in the area. It's either you connect to that line or you don't connect. But then just about at that moment, these new grid connection rules from Frans Electrica appeared and the different categories of projects. So you can have a best project with solar at the back, but it's It's a hybrid project, but the focus is more on the best than on the solar. But once you have the best build, you can build as much solar as you like behind it. So you can build 10 megawatts peak or 100. It's your problem, but your limitation is the best capacity that you have approved. So we managed to adapt the solution study. along the way. That means different calculations, but a lot of projects that were on the list for a solar study, you didn't have to take into account anymore. Because there are a lot of paper projects in Romania also, and if you do a solar study, you have any project that received a favorable grid connection proposal. have to take into account but with the best you only have to take into account other best projects and a few smaller other projects. so that study came back clean. On the same line we could have a best project inject 49 megawatts and also charge the battery with 49 megawatts and have the same capacity of solar at the back. I think almost any other country, they would have told you, you your solar, no. And you said, no, we will not continue with, and then you had to start the whole process from zero. And in Romania, we managed to just keep going, switch the, let's say, reorientate the project along the way and get it approved. And now we have... Debit connection agreement, we paid the guarantee. It's also a good thing in Romania. They started introducing guarantees, which they didn't have until summer last year. So that's positive. We paid it and we'll need about six more months to get it to ready to build. And we think that with the investor we have in place, they really want to go fast. So somewhere in the summer, latest Q3 2027 it will be built and it will start producing and Romania needs a lot of energy. It's a market where there were quite a lot coal power plants from the communist period so the let's say the very polluting ones and they're also very old so either you have to modernize them but I don't think anybody is still thinking about that in Europe anymore. So you have to get something else in the system to produce. for Romania, the only real options, some of them are being switched with gas power plants because they have a double function also for city heating. And it's not here, let's say geothermal and other options for that. are still not very common in Romania. think it's also a cultural thing. It will take some time before some first experiments and first projects are being done in that part. So some of these coal power plants are being replaced by gas power plants. But a lot of the capacity will come from new renewables. And then you have basically solar and wind. New hydro projects also in Romania are very difficult. They already developed quite some hydro under communism, so all the good spots are taken and then whatever is not taken there you do have, let's say, serious environmental reviews and most of these areas are natural protected natural areas. So I don't think anybody is still developing serious capacities of new hydro anymore in Romania. So then it's either renewables or nuclear and nuclear is still an option in Romania. They have two nuclear power plants. They produce about 20 % of energy and electricity in Romania. And they wanna build two more on the same, let's say same spot, same area that are already partly built. And this whole building process started on the communism. And I think they will make... build them, continue them, but it takes, I don't know, another 10 years before they're in the market. And Romania already has to import several terawatt hours a year of energy. They used to be an exporting country and then you get into politics, they don't like this. Romania wants to be an exporting country of energy, to have, let's say, a strong regional position in that. And so for that, yeah, they will have to build a lot of renewals. Renewables is the answer indeed. We mentioned and we talked about what is actually working, but can we talk about maybe the pitfalls and what are the drawbacks of developing in Romania versus other countries? The drawbacks. Well, one of the problems in Romania is that there are a lot of subsidies available for projects and that's, you know, it sounds nice to have a subsidy but some of the subsidies are not well run. So to give an example, there is a subsidy for solar projects. So a CAPEX subsidy. So you can apply and with your projects and you can say in order to build this project and to for it to become economically viable I need 50 000 euros per per megawatt peak 100 000 euros to to do this then the whole evaluation process you know first of all the whole participation process is a waste of time for a lot of people you have to come with a feasibility study But all these usability studies, have to respect European rules for subsidies. And it's just a lot of bullocks. I don't really understand why they just can't say, okay, we have subsidies available. We do a very simple tender. You just ask how much you want and the one who is more modest, but you also, you have skin in the game, you you participate, you put money on the table. And if you don't take the money, You you lose whatever you... And here there's no skin in the game from the developers, so everybody asks. But then the Romanians, they have a limited administrative capacity. So I think some of these tenders, were almost one and a half years ago. And only right now they're signing the contracts. You know, one and a half years, you have a project that's almost ready to build. You ask for the subsidy and then you sit and wait until they're going to give you the subsidy. And so it doesn't do the job that it's supposed to do. It's supposed to get things going. instead of that, because it's not well executed, it's not well thought, it's not a smooth process, it does the opposite. It creates a kind of blockage in the market. And then whenever they start signing the contracts, they sign them usually all in a month. And then everybody wants to continue, wants to continue at the same moment. So then you have another problem. need, you know, in order to have a market, you need continuity. And in order to have a market that is well functioning, you need continuity. Continuity it in batches hopefully and preferably right because then as you mentioned if we are actually getting congested at different stages of the process and the projects but everybody is getting congested at those the same exact bottlenecks Exactly. Yeah. And that's, that's something you don't need in this market. and that's what's so good, for example, about the Spanish market up to now. They have other problems here right now, but the last five years, the Spanish market was subsidy free. So there was continuity, you know, every month there were projects that got approvals and went on and started constructing. And that's, that went very well until... It went almost too well that we have all these solar projects in Spain right now. And we need storage, right? In order to capture their overproduction during the day and make sure that it's used in the evening when we really need it. And also to make sure that the capture price for all storage, all solar projects in the market is getting a bit better because it's too low right now. You can't do any new projects anymore at at the capture rate of 25 or 30 euros. And whoever knows what's going to happen next year. I've had two projects in producing in Spain from the first wave. And there were months that I had to give money to pay money into the system for the privilege of putting energy into the system. And then this really begs the question of the famous Spanish and Portuguese blackout. Do you have any insights into that? How did that actually happen and what are the lessons that we can learn from those? No, not really. I'm not a technical guy. So I've just been reading the same reports that everybody's reading and where the details came out slowly. And it seems to be a lot of things that didn't go well one after the other. And I think it was an enormous wake up call for the Spanish government. And they realized that They need a lot of new bests in the market and they also need strict rules for all the participants in the market to make sure that it functions as it has to function. And that's not easy because as you see, the technological developments are going quite quickly. And usually the regulators, they... It takes time to, know, if you want the new set of rules to set of rules for market participants, you need to consult them. You need to see what your final objectives are. Is this the best way to get there? Is there a cheaper way to get there? Is there a more efficient way to get there? It takes time. And now it's in kind of there in overdrive, which is, yeah, which was necessary because they have been. sleeping at the steering wheel. But I'm sure this is a continuous process. If you look at BESS projects two, three years ago, everybody expected prices of 250,000, 300,000 euros per megawatt hour. And then if you want to get 20 gigawatt hour of BESS into the market, is a cost. There's a cost to that. And if you don't have the market mechanisms in place so that this cost can be recovered in the markets, then you need something else, either a subsidy or whatever. Whatever you make things going if you know this is what you need in your system. And these calculations, if you made them yesterday, tomorrow, you have to make them again. It's going... extremely quick, way more quickly than I think many of us expected this and this will open new opportunities. And I think what you will see is that there will be a lot of utility bests. There will be a lot of private persons that will put batteries in their house. I'm now looking at my house in Romania to put solar and bests and the best part is 15 kilowatt hour system, including installation is just over a hundred euros per kilowatt hour. And this is not a brand. This is a basic brand, but I think the cells they use are the same. And you know, this is where we're going. And then it's just, and I have regular blackouts of the grid in the little village that I live. It's a very old grid. So for me this is a no-brainer and there will be many people in the village, everybody who can afford it, will put a battery. Factories will do it, it will be a complex system with a lot of participants and a lot of capacity involved. And you've touched on a couple of things that I want to circle back to. So first of all, the batteries and the rules and perhaps the most important word is the capacity, right? Just between, let's say January and now, the capacity of the same side battery pack has increased quite a bit. So it's difficult to set rules on a moving target, right? And then the next knock-on effect is that it actually opens... even newer and other use cases for that battery. how can we predict and simplify what the future might look like if we don't know what is going to be the standard kind of capacity battery at that point in time? Well, look where... The energy system is not unique in that sense. As a society, we continuously have to make rules and regulations that need continuous adaptations. Maybe not at the speed we're talking about here, but so it's not a unique process for us. And here, I think there are enough forecasts for where we're heading. I think one of the forecast is that solar will not get more expensive. It will only get cheaper. you know, and it's already in Romania, the latest CFD options, they gave a price for solar around 40 euros per megawatt hour. That's a good indication. And I don't think it will be more expensive five or 10 years from now. And then if it really goes down to 38 or 33, it's not that relevant anymore. know, it's already by far the cheapest source of power. And then the thing becomes, okay, but how can you make it dispatchable by adding a BAS? And I think from my, let's say back of the envelope calculation that kind of, The cost price of running a cycle on your best is around 20 euros per megawatt hour. So if you add that to the solar, you get at a dispatchable price of around 60. Let's make it 70. The average price the day ahead market in Romania is 105. And it has been quite stable for the last three years. And I don't, unless solar is really getting very, very big and best is really getting very, very, very big. I don't see it going down that quickly. We really need these five, five Giga. and, and then the whole question is, think we, already needs three, four, five Giga right now in order to manage that. But in the meantime, over the next five years, we'll have another build out of, say that don't go. Let's not go for the 10, let's say 8, 8 gigawatts of additional solar and wind, where I think solar will be two thirds of this. So let's say five, five, six, gigawatts in solar and two, two to three in, in, in wind. So how much additional bass do you need to manage this capacity? I don't know half of that. 30%, you know, another two, three gigahertz just to manage this addition. And then, you know, and then we're in 2030, but things don't stop there. As if all goes well, we will see increased electrification and increased demand for electricity. you know, the game continues and best will be fantastic in that sense that it will... I think at least that is what I expected will do is to stabilize the price a bit and to make sure that the lows are not that low anymore. So you don't really go to zero or below zero. And also that the highs in the evening will not be that high anymore. So it will give them a more stable market. A more stable markets means easier financing for new projects. And then you get into a... a kind of circle that could enforce itself and could keep itself going for quite a while. It's a nice idea. I think the only bottleneck here could be the grid, right? So that's the only thing that needs a major upgrade. And I know that the policymakers on the European level are working on this, but hopefully we will get to a good enough framework that will actually make the application a little bit easier across the countries. Yeah, that's certainly something that needs to be done. think also here the situation in Romania is a bit different from other countries. Energy consumption used to be higher in Romania. Let's say under communism, there were some really big factories with enormous inefficiency from an energy point of view, production methods. These factories, they, after... let's say the transition, they either reduce their capacity or none of them is producing at the same capacity as they used to have. Some of them closed completely and the ones that didn't close, they modernized. So, and reduced their energy consumption quite considerably. So at this moment, I would say generally, And we've seen it on some of the high voltage lines that we made an application for our biggest projects. Current use of these high voltage lines is 20%. It's nothing. We put our very big projects on them and then it increased to 40 percent. So there are areas in Romania with still a lot of capacity. The limitations are more in the east and the south of the country where all the initial projects for solar and wind development have taken place because the solar resource is a bit better than in the middle where we are. And wind is considerably better in those areas than in the middle of the country. So all the wind energy projects are from, especially from the first wave of renewables are in those areas. What Norway does need to do is that most of these, the grid capacity was built under communism. And so we're talking about the sixties and the seventies and Again, I'm not a technical specialist, but I think after about 50 years of service, something needs to be renewed over there. So they will have a lot of work in renewing existing capacities, but it's a bit less in Romania about adding completely new capacities. What we do see in Romania, and then we get back to the war in Ukraine, is that there's a very high priority now for adding connections to Ukraine, especially the Republic of Moldova. So there they've increased capacity a lot in a very short timeframe, and they're currently building a high voltage connection to the Republic of Moldova also. And you see, if you look at the flow, you see... energy coming in from the Ukraine, then passing Romania, entering into Moldova and then going back into Ukraine again to the Odessa area. And then fortunately, I think we've all seen pictures and reports on how much of the infrastructure in Ukraine is being damaged. And Romania used to get a lot of relatively cheap power from the Ukraine. But at this moment, that has changed. So, and I guess it begs the question of who is going to pay for these grid upgrades if they need to happen, right? So is it going to be passed on to the project developer of renewables or the government should pay for it? It's going to be the next hot potato, right? So what is your take on what's your experience with that? But at the moment in Romania, if as a developer, if for your project, the grid needs to upgrade it, you pay for it. And that's why there are a lot of projects in the market with grid reinforcements. And I foresee that some of them will be very difficult to realize, partially because of the extra cost for the grid reinforcement, but it's also an uncertainty factor. that you have because usually the reinforcements are not only for you but also for one, two, three other projects. If these other projects are not continuing, then you don't really know exactly when and then your share of the grid reinforcements might increase and it's also not very clear how quick these reinforcements will be executed. You have a project with an uncertainty on the final cost of the grid reinforcements and uncertainty on the timeline. And that's not good for any investor. But for the projects that can be built without grid reinforcements, if for example, five or 10 years from now, that network needs to be replaced simply because it's old, then as far as I understood the rules of the game in Romania, it's not your cost. This will be done either through European funds, because there are a lot of European funds for this for Romania. Romania has the modernization fund, which is based on the historical CO2 rights that they have and the CO2 prices are still quite considerable. There is a lot of money in that fund. The last time I looked was something like 16-17 billion. And for a country like Romania, know, that's the problem is not that there is no money. The problem is that there is limited administrative and let's say executing capacity to spend the money according to the rules and regulations in place. So that's more of the limiting factor. So we will find a bottleneck here and there, it seems like Romania is looking much better than most of the European countries in terms of hybrid projects, I would say yes, and it doesn't show in the numbers constructed at this moment, but there are many, many projects under construction right now. And I see that this will continue over the next three, four years. We also see a very solid interest from international investors for the Romanian markets, from smaller investors to bigger ones. And I'm not here to say that the Romanian market is the perfect market. There are many good markets in Europe you can go to. But I think also one of the lessons most developers learned is that there is a kind of cyclical nature to renewable development. So if you are only developing or only building in one country, then today, You don't know where to find the workers. one year from now, you don't know what to do with your workers, your employees, simply because it's, you know, there are a lot of ups and downs in these markets. And then it's better to spread your risk a bit. If you reach a certain size of your company and not have all your eggs in one basket. So do a few projects in Romania, be also active in Spain and... and maybe also some projects in Poland, or you go to a niche market, Montenegro, all these markets are valid for their own reasons and offer pros and cons. But it makes sense to be active in a few of them once you reach a certain size with your company. And maybe if you really grow, I would certainly suggest to go somewhere outside Europe where there's a dynamic. again will be different. are lots of things going on in Asia, Africa, South America. So just don't depend on one country because it's been proved. That's the one thing that has been proven. It's risky. and what's your and the sole renewables strategy? Are you guys going to focus on Romania for the foreseeable future or do you have some great expansion plans as well? No, no, no, we don't have any great expansion plans. The last four years, we're only a very small team, and we're three founders, all three of us. work in the company, and we have three more colleagues that work with us. So we're six. We've developed over a GW in capacity. We already know that for the medium-sized projects, will will, well, least that's the expectation I will be involved to bring them up to COD. And I think once we get there, we're talking about 2027, maybe for the bigger projects, probably later, 2028. And I think then it's enough for us. We'll take a break. I am very much into wind surfing and I would like to take a few months. windsurfing somewhere without having to worry about project progress or something else. And we don't have the ambition to become a multi-country player ourselves. that's very powerful that you guys have a set plan and you are aiming towards that and then once it's done you can actually take some steps back and you enjoy life a little bit more and then who knows what the future brings, right? Yeah, we'll see. I'm not afraid of that. I've done this before and it always worked out very well for me. and you actually ran multiple businesses slightly across different verticals. What is the kind of universal lesson that you learned from all of them? a universal lesson that you learned. Okay. My lesson is that in the businesses I've been involved in, every business needs continuous attention and you get complacency very easily in any business. And so you need to push continuously to keep it going. And sometimes this works. But sometimes it doesn't. for example, three years ago, I started a furniture business in Romania in the 90s. That was at that time the right business for Romania. Salaries were quite low. There was good expertise in making furniture. And there was good availability of raw materials. And so we made handmade furniture where there was a good market for it. And now people want modern stuff. Handmade is too expensive in Romania. And so that was it. You know, we try to do it differently, to innovate, but then at a certain moment I could see it wasn't working anymore. And my, also my passion was more in renewables than in furniture. And if your passion and your attention isn't in something, then it's really time to stop. So. I stopped the business, everybody got paid, we drew a line and that was it. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. There are very few businesses that last more than 100 years. for sure, but I mean that takes a lot of discipline and also mental fortitude to say like, okay, this is my business. It's not really working out. I can end it clear cut and then I know that I'm going to move into something else, but I actually have the bravery to actually say to myself, okay, I'm done with this and let's move on. No, it was a big relief because if your passion isn't into it anymore and you're doing something out of kind of inertia and obligation, first of all, you're not doing it as well as you should. And you know it, at least I knew it. And then, you know, it's really better for all involved to draw a line. Once I did and closing a business, had over a hundred employees. know, closing a business is a pain in the a** It's, you don't want to, I don't wish that on anybody. It's complicated and it's painful and there are personal stories and people that have been working for me for 20, 25 years at 50, 60 years old, they needed to find a new job. which was fortunately not that difficult in Romania at that time. But it's an emotional process, it's complex. But once I did it, for me it felt as a big relief, despite of the fact that of course it was a very costly process to do. It's not cheap to close a business anywhere. Yeah, I mean that takes a lot of courage and maybe looking into the future we actually getting to the end of our time. What type of people would you like to speak to who should connect you with you and SOL renewables? For me, knowledge at this moment is of the Romanian market. So anybody who has an interest in solar and BESS in Romania and just wants to compare notes, I'm always very, very eager to know what's happening in other markets. So you can always reach out to me and I'm happy to share our experiences here and to learn. going very quickly and there are moments where I've learned a lot from other markets and from other people who share their experiences with me and I'm happy to do the same. And maybe at this moment, know, Romania can teach something to the Netherlands and to the German market. That would be nice, right? it does sound like it, know, and how to simplify things and how to move things faster. hopefully we can get to the Net Zero initiative much, much faster in Europe. And Gijsbert, on that note, what would be the right way to get in touch with you? What's the right way and channel? I think I can be easily found on LinkedIn and I usually reply within a day or two. Reach out to me over there and we'll connect. Okay, we will link to those in the show notes below as well just to make sure. And, Gijsbert any finishing thoughts? No, the thought is that I started working in this sector in 2010. At that time, solar was still ridiculously expensive. Wind was also roughly double. The levelized cost of wind was roughly double the average market price. Fortunately, we are where we are right now. At that time, everything depended on subsidies and And let's say you have to force these technologies into the market to get them going. At this moment, they're the cheapest. It's not without complexities. But let's keep the momentum going. Let's get as much solar and wind into the market as quickly as possible. And I know the last 10 or 20 % of... of getting it, let's say, renewables into the system, the last 10 to 20 % will be the more complex. Let's get there. Maybe in five years, maybe in 10 years, and then we'll deal with it. And they will be more costly, but that's okay. If you have 80 % of your electricity at 50, 60, 70 euros per megawatt hour, and the last 20 % is double that price. It's not the end of the world. You know, we have an average price of 100 right now in Romania and we can live with that. And if it doesn't pollute the sky anymore and if it makes us more, let's say, energy independent, then I think it's not even a price paying. We still have a lower price system and I think we will really get there. and it's a more resilient system with a lot more players in the market. That's the most important job of our generation, so we will make sure to get there. Exactly. I'm doing whatever I can within my limited possibilities. And I know there are thousands of people out there in the world, or millions of people that are doing the same, from small solar on houses in Africa with a little battery, to projects for energy efficiency projects. to electrification efforts, energy saving projects, all of these will add up to this new system. But we have to keep going and we have to speed up. I feel that we have no time to waste. Indeed, Gijsbert thank you very much. Thank you for your time and I can't wait to do this again. Thank you, bye. Thanks. Bye bye.