Abstract—Despite the apparent abundance of natural resources, the existence of an attractive support scheme for energy from biogas and a wide-ranging tradition in this field, the Romanian biogas sector underwent a slower development than expected. At the end of 2014 only 10 biogas plants with an installed capacity of 12 MWel (Mega Watt electric) fed electricity into the Romanian national power grid. This study aims to analyse the factors that determined the slow development of the sector. In order to analyse the sector’s development so far, we studied the available official data regarding the electricity grid and the implementation of the current and past support mechanisms, statistical data regarding relevant resources as well as the national legislation concerning the support of renewable energy. Further, the available academic literature on the matter was consulted and interviews with several market players in this field were conducted. In order to draft some possible entrepreneurial approaches which could contribute to the future development of the sector — which constitutes the secondary goal of our research — we interviewed several market experts using the Delphi method. This article summarizes the findings of the research conducted so far and is meant to help draft appropriate business models for the market situation and contribute to the further development of the sector at a faster pace. Among other findings, the biogas sector is expected to be in future rather connected to the need of own waste neutralization, engaging companies with other core businesses then to generate and sell energy from renewable sources.
Index Terms—Biogas, business models, energy markets, potential, Romania.
The authors are with the Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Languages of the University of Economic Studies Bucharest, 010731 Bucharest, Romania (e-mail: clodnitchi@yahoo.com, adrian.tantau@fabiz.ase.ro).
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Cite:R. Clodnițchi and A. D. Tanțău, "The Romanian Biogas Sector-Slow Development Despite Attractive Conditions," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 161-166, 2016.
