Investors Don’t Fear Risk; They Fear Unpleasant Surprises

We have sun, wind, water, gas, and nuclear power. What we lack are grids, batteries, and the state's patience to let investors work. Without them, the “regional hub” remains a slogan.

It looks very good at conferences, and even better in presentations for investors, to talk about Romania as the region's future energy hub. But energy is not delivered through presentations. It is delivered through lines, substations, storage, and stable rules. In this respect, our pace is not keeping up with our ambitions. Recently, at the Annual Regional Conference organized in Bucharest by Eurogas in partnership with the Energy Employers' Federation, I conveyed several messages that you can find in today's commentary.

First of all, we now have an opportunity that we will not get twice. The European market is no longer going through a simple transition. It is rewriting its security architecture, and Romania has the opportunity to be among those who write it, not among those who read it.The map is visibly changing. The country is no longer merely a consumer or an isolated regional player. The Black Sea, viewed for decades as a border, can become an energy gateway through all offshore developments and cross-border interconnections, including the Green Corridor. What few European partners can offer is our mix: nuclear power, hydropower, onshore and offshore natural gas, plus a wave of photovoltaic and wind projects. It shows that decarbonization does not require sacrificing industrial competitiveness. In a geopolitically reshaped region, Romania can be the anchor of flexibility and balance for Central and Eastern Europe.However, a position on the map means nothing if you cannot move electrons from producer to consumer at affordable prices for everyone, citizens and companies alike.

The issue is not what we produce, but what we manage to store for consumption and transport. Romania's greatest vulnerability does not concern resources. It concerns the gap between the speed at which we add green capacity and the speed at which we modernize, digitalize, and expand transmission and distribution networks.Investors' appetite for production is enormous. Permits are requested, applications are filed, and gigawatts are announced. But a power plant that cannot be connected to the grid, or whose energy cannot circulate, is a stranded asset. When the grid becomes congested, the operator limits production. In practice, clean energy, already paid for through investments, is wasted. At other times, due to a lack of storage, the same energy is sold at prices that no longer even cover costs. The consumer gains nothing from this, while the investor learns a costly lesson about country risk.

Grids need massive capital, but not capital alone. They need shorter procedures, permits that are not measured in years, and an administration that treats an electricity line as critical national security infrastructure, not as one file among many. Every year lost in permitting is a year in which green production remains waiting at the gate.

Moreover, investors do not run from risk; they run from unpleasant surprises. The physical bottleneck is compounded by a regulatory one. In recent years, Romania's energy sector has learned to live with taxes, caps, and emergency measures introduced overnight, sometimes retroactively affecting calculations made for ten or fifteen years.It is a contradiction that is difficult to ignore. On the one hand, we ask for billions of euros for generation units, storage, grids, and new technologies. On the other hand, we send the signal that the rules can be rewritten whenever the state needs money. Capital for projects with a ten-year payback period is not committed under such conditions, or it is committed at a cost that ultimately ends up on the consumer's bill. Predictability is not a favor done to investors. It is the cheapest energy policy instrument available to the state.

If I could choose a single measure within the government's reach, I would choose deregulation of investments in system flexibility.The benefit does not stop at Romania's border. A flexible system in this part of the continent is a safety net for the entire Union. It puts downward pressure on prices for consumers and provides resilience in the face of future geopolitical shocks, of which Europe has had more than its share in recent years. For Brussels, this means security. For Romania, it means a strong argument in negotiating funding and projects of common interest.

Romania has the resources, vision, and expertise. What is missing is a genuine partnership between authorities, financial institutions, and the private sector—one in which the state reduces regulatory risk, banks and European funds reduce financing risk, and companies assume execution risk. Without these three pieces, we are left with beautiful plans that lead nowhere.