Dan Pîrșan: In May 2026, Romania had 330,000 prosumers

Vladimir Mitev

Summary

Here is the complete and detailed summary of the interview given by Dan Pîrșan, president of the Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities in Romania, to journalist Vladimir Mitev:

1. The prosumer boom and statistical trends

• Massive growth: The number of prosumers has skyrocketed from a few thousand in 2018 to over 40,000 as of January 1, 2023, reaching over 330,000 in May 2026.
• Energy capacity: Prosumers’ installed capacity exceeds 3,800 MW, making them the second-largest installed capacity in Romania, after Hidroelectrica.
• Private investments: Romanians have invested over 2.5 billion euros out of their own pockets over the past 5 years to install solar panels, a figure that does not include those financed through the “Green House” government programs.
• Triggering factors: The main factors driving this trend are price volatility, rising energy costs, and general market turbulence. Prosumerism is seen as a quick solution for reducing energy bills.
• Outlook: Although state funding programs will no longer be in effect starting in 2025, public interest remains high (10,000 new prosumers in December and January alone). The number of prosumers is projected to exceed 400,000 by the end of 2026.

2. The Role of the State and the Association’s Legislative Victories

• Positive Contributions: The state initially provided support through the “Green House” programs (which subsidized 90% of expenses for limited projects) and by eliminating the requirement for a building permit for solar panels (on-rooftop or ground-mounted) in 2020.
• Elimination of the “Sun Tax” (2024): The European RED II Directive allowed national regulators to impose a tax on self-consumption if prosumers reached 8% of the country’s capacity. The Association, with the support of the European Commission, demonstrated to policymakers that the measure is optional and succeeded in removing it from national legislation without risk of an infringement procedure.
• Blocking retroactive mandatory storage (2024): Parliament had approved an amendment requiring all prosumers to retroactively install batteries, under penalty of limiting grid feed-in to just 3 kW. Following the association’s appeals and petitions to the presidency, the law was sent back to Parliament and the abusive provision was removed.

3. The Relationship with Energy Suppliers and the New Prosumer Law

• The “poisoned” 24-month settlement system: Under ANRE Order No. 15/2022, suppliers could defer payment of the energy surplus for 24 months from the billing date. Some suppliers refused to issue invoices for 2–4 years, leaving consumers with massive accumulated debts, even though they had fed energy into the grid.
• Suppliers’ credit lines: The Association estimates that this mechanism has provided suppliers with a free credit line of over 650 million euros over the past 4 years. In addition, suppliers have received approximately 430 million euros from the state as compensation for price caps, profiting a total of over 1 billion euros at the expense of prosumers.
• Success at the Constitutional Court (2026): A new parliamentary initiative, the “Prosumer Law,” was challenged before the Constitutional Court by energy companies through President Nicușor Dan. On April 29, 2026, the Constitutional Court declared the law constitutional, rejecting the objections, thanks to a solid legal brief submitted by the Association. The law will take effect in the fall of 2026.
• Key provisions of the new law:
  • Transition to monthly energy billing.
  • Offsetting consumption across multiple consumption sites (e.g., production in Craiova, offsetting in Constanța).
  • Directly offsetting excess electricity against natural gas consumption (kW/h for kW/h of active energy), if the supplier offers both utilities.
• Proposals for improvement: Current incentives apply only to residential prosumers (under 27 kW). The Association seeks to extend the law to commercial entities and increase the installed power limit to 100 kW.

4. Energy Communities in Romania

• Legislation Under Pressure: Facing the imminent threat of an infringement procedure and to avoid losing 500 million euros from the PNRR, the Ministry of Energy hastily adopted Emergency Ordinance 59/2025 to transpose the RED III Directive.
• Problematic provisions: The ordinance stipulated that prosumers joining an energy community would lose this status, becoming active customers required to issue invoices, pay VAT, income tax, and health insurance (even though prosumers are legally exempt from taxes on surplus energy fed into the grid until December 31, 2030).
• OECD Monitoring: At the association’s initiative, the OECD and the European Commission directly monitor ANRE. Dan Pîrșan serves as a civil society rapporteur, which led to the emergence of a second draft bill for communities, this time compliant with European standards.

5. About the Association and the President’s Background

• Establishment and Status: Established on December 13, 2023, to give a voice to prosumers who were previously unorganized. Currently, it is the largest NGO in Romania in terms of paying members (over 1,850 members, with an annual membership fee of 20 euros), serving as a major influence in the media and legislative changes.
• Dan Pîrșan: He has extensive experience in the electricity sector. He emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s, where he served as a production manager at a large neon sign company (working with high and low voltage). Upon returning to Romania, he developed a business in the field and has been installing photovoltaic panels for 8 years.

6. Romania’s Energy Ambitions and the Problem of High Prices

• The resource paradox: Although Romania is rich in resources (water, sun, nuclear energy), it has some of the highest electricity prices in the EU. Unlike other neighboring countries, it does not have functional pumped-storage hydroelectric plants (the domestic 3 GW/MW project is stuck in the feasibility study phase).
• The State’s Interest: The state owns over 80% of energy production and prefers high prices because it receives massive dividends from its own companies and collects large sums from VAT and excise taxes. Energy prices, along with fuel taxes, are the pillars of the state budget’s survival.
• Comparison with Canada (Hidroelectrica): While in British Columbia (Canada) hydroelectric power (95% of the total) costs the end consumer around 45 bani (less than 10 cents) with all taxes and distribution included, the Romanian company Hidroelectrica sells energy for 45 bani directly at the power plant gate, with no additional fees.
• Bill structure: The actual active energy produced accounts for only 40% of the final cost paid by Romanians, with the remaining 60% consisting of VAT and various transmission and distribution fees.

Interview

Intro

Dan Pîrșan is the president of the Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities.

Data on the boom in prosumers in Romania

Mr. Pîrșan, as president of the Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities, could you provide more detailed statistics on the boom in prosumers in Romania over the past few years?

As of 2018, I believe there were only a few thousand prosumers in Romania. The number of prosumers in Romania connected to the distribution grid was, as of January 1, 2023, over 40,000. And in May 2026, we surpassed 330,000 prosumers, with an installed capacity of over 3,800 MW. We are, in effect, the second-largest installed capacity in Romania, after Hidroelectrica. Over the past five years, we’ve estimated that Romanians have invested over 2.5 billion euros out of their own pockets to install photovoltaic panels. And here I’m not referring to those who received state aid through the Romanian Casa Verde programs, which were implemented in the past.

What factors have contributed to this boom in prosumers in Romania?

Well, as everywhere else, this boom was primarily due to energy price volatility, rising energy costs, and, overall, turbulence in the energy market. This is happening in all countries, including, for example, Pakistan. Likewise, wherever people were able to install solar panels as they wished, they did so. So, prosumers are emerging as a refuge from high prices and turbulence in the energy sector.

And fortunately, we say, prosumerism—a term I coined, meaning to install and generate your own solar energy—is the only way to reduce your energy bills starting tomorrow. In other words, it’s the fastest way to lower your bills, whether you’re an individual, a business, or a corporation. It turns out that Romanians have understood this; they’ve talked to one another, formed communities on social media, and even though for the past two years—that is, in 2025 and 2026—the Casa Verde program no longer exists and we are no longer funded by the state, Romanians’ appetite for installing photovoltaic panels remains very high.

Let me give you an example: during two winter months, December and January, when it’s cold, there’s ice on the roofs and often snow, 10,000 Romanians became prosumers. Therefore, we estimate that by the end of 2026, we will have over 400,000 prosumers in Romania.

The role of the Romanian government in the prosumer sector

The Romanian government has likely also had a significant impact by adopting the necessary legislation for prosumers and by implementing various programs. What can be said about the role of the Romanian government? To what extent does the government strongly encourage the development of prosumers, and to what extent might it also act as an obstacle?

Now we must give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, as an old Latin proverb says. The Romanian government has made a positive contribution, a significant one, especially through the Casa Verde Fotovoltaice programs, which were extraordinarily generous to Romanians, in the sense that they covered 90% of the costs for a limited-scale project. In terms of legislation, we could say that we had a few visionary lawmakers who introduced a bill in 2020 to eliminate the requirement for prosumers to obtain a building permit, regardless of whether the panels are installed on a house or on the ground.

Then came European legislation—I’m referring to RED II in particular—which had, and I believe still has in your country, a clause, a very harmful, poisonous article. It states that if prosumers reach 8% of the country’s energy production capacity, the national regulator—in our case, ANRE—could impose a tax on self-consumption. We generically called it the “sun tax.” I myself named it that.

Thanks to a very well-organized campaign by the association, just two months after its founding in 2024, we managed to eliminate this sun tax with the support of the European Commission. This helped us tremendously, and they sent us a document through which we were able to explain to the government that this tax was optional—being a “may” clause rather than a mandatory one—and that removing it from national legislation did not pose a risk of an infringement procedure. As I said, the then-Minister of Energy reacted positively to this issue, and so, two or three months after its establishment in 2024, the Prosumer Association achieved its first major legislative victory.

The role of electricity distributors

I believe the role of energy distributors/suppliers is also very important. While reading your association’s website, I learned that there is a practice whereby electricity purchased from suppliers is paid for only after two years. Can you explain this practice in more detail and why this happens?

We started out with a major disadvantage from the very beginning, namely that politics and the laws were partly crafted against our interests. In 2022, the national regulator ANRE, in collusion with energy companies— and here I am referring to suppliers, issued Order No. 15 of 2022, whereby the energy surplus is made available—in quotation marks—to the prosumer for a period of 24 months, note, from the billing date. So we’ve had—and still have today—situations where energy suppliers haven’t billed customers for two, three, or even four years. They simply didn’t bill them. People lived under the impression that what they fed into the grid was offset by what they consumed, and after three or four years, they found themselves with a stack of bills for very large amounts, in the thousands and thousands of euros. I’ve even found cases of 20,000 or 25,000 euros that had to be paid, while the energy people had fed into the grid was supposed to be paid for, for example, in 2028, if they had billed in 2026.

You should know that nowhere else in Europe has there been such a system. It is a toxic system, devised by regulators together with suppliers to create a line of credit for the latter. We, the Prosumer Association, have estimated that this line of credit over the last four years exceeds some 650 million euros. So, a very large amount of energy that they had at their disposal. What’s more, they received around 430 million euros from the Romanian state for this unpaid energy, but they received it in the form of compensation for price caps, since Romania had capped energy prices for many years in a row. So, here we see that the suppliers collected a total of over one billion euros from prosumers’ energy.

We fought very hard to have this law repealed, and there was an initiative in the Romanian Parliament, called the “Prosumer Law,” which would have eliminated this procedure. It would have ended the 24-month period, and billing was to be monthly. The law had a bumpy ride; it was sent back twice by the presidency, but eventually it came up for a vote. Last October, it passed with 299 votes in the Romanian Parliament. Afterward, lawyers and legal experts representing energy suppliers formed a working group and sent a petition to Romania’s new president, Nicușor Dan, arguing that the law contained no fewer than five unconstitutional provisions. Of course, the president forwarded it directly to the Constitutional Court, where, after five postponements, on April 29 of this year, the law correcting this issue was declared constitutional. The president’s request for a ruling of unconstitutionality was rejected, and the law is set to be published in the Official Gazette, after which ANRE will regulate it.

What I want to tell you is that the Prosumer Association played a decisive role in the Constitutional Court’s ruling that this law is constitutional, by drafting a legal brief in which we refuted all five grounds for unconstitutionality. We demonstrated that the law is fully in line with European standards in every respect and that it aligns with the EU acquis in this area of legislation. In this regard, we received legal support from the European Commission, and this brief was drafted by the highly qualified legal experts with whom we collaborate in Romania. So, we have managed to positively influence the course of this law at the Constitutional Court, as it has been admitted, and we expect its effects to take effect this fall.

The Prosumer Law

What can be said about the most important provisions of the Prosumer Law? In what respects is this law successful, and in what areas would your organization like to see it improved?

This law allows prosumers who generate energy at one location to offset consumption at another location. That is, for example, if someone generates energy in Craiova, they can offset the consumption of an apartment in Constanța. Another very interesting aspect, which has no parallel in European legislation, is that if the supplier to whom you present and send your surplus to the grid also has natural gas in its portfolio, you can offset the surplus electricity with natural gas consumption, kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour, referring, of course, to active energy.

As I mentioned, the law provides for three key elements: monthly payment, offsetting across multiple consumption points, and offsetting with natural gas. We would like to improve this in the sense that, currently, the law provides these benefits only for residential prosumers—that is, for installed capacity under 27 kW—excluding businesses. I would aim for a higher capacity, up to 100 kW of installed capacity, and I would extend the applicability to commercial entities and businesses as well, because businesses also have multiple consumption sites, points of sale, and need this law. If I were to improve the law, I would focus exclusively on commercial entities and raise the limit to 100 kW of installed capacity.

Prosumers and batteries

I believe there were discussions at times regarding the introduction of a requirement to install batteries alongside prosumer installations. What can be said about this? What are the regulations for battery use?

It was a tough battle. Two days before the 2024 parliamentary recess, an amendment appeared in the Committee on Industry and Services that deputies approved by a majority without knowing exactly what it was about. It was a proposal that would have required all prosumers in Romania to have storage systems. This in itself wasn’t bad, but the problem was that the measure applied retroactively. If you didn’t want to install storage, regardless of your installed capacity, you were no longer allowed to feed more than 3 kW into the grid. In other words, they would simply revoke the connection certificate you held—a document you receive as a prosumer from the distribution operator specifying, for example, that on a three-phase system you can feed 24 kW into the grid and draw 25 kW from it—and limit you to 3 kW, on the grounds that they had conducted a study and concluded that storage is mandatory.

We know this, and we challenged them precisely on the grounds that this storage must come to prosumers naturally, not forced and not retroactively. On this issue, we submitted two well-founded petitions to the President of Romania regarding unconstitutionality. This time it was our turn to challenge the law for unconstitutionality and for the fact that it was applied retroactively. We presented several arguments to the presidency, and as a result, the then-President, Klaus Werner Iohannis, sent the law back to Parliament. There, through effective lobbying—carried out with determination and force—we demonstrated that this law cannot be applied and that it is not appropriate to apply it, and ultimately, Parliament removed that provision.

The energy commmunities in Romania

Your organization also deals with energy communities. What can be said about this? For now, I believe I know of only one such organization, only one cooperative of this kind. How many members operating as energy cooperatives do you have? And what is the status of the legislation and regulation of these types of economic activities?

Romania was at risk of an infringement procedure because it did not want to establish energy communities, to be clear. How did Romania manage to adopt legislation for energy communities? Simply: with a gun to its head. Through the PNRR program, there are funds allocated for Romanians who want to organize an energy community within administrative-territorial units—that is, we’re talking here about city halls, villages, and so on. We’re talking about 500 million euros—half a billion euros through the PNRR—which Romania risked losing. Why? Because it lacked legislation, and the folks in Brussels said, “How can we give you this money as long as you don’t have any energy communities or even legislation?”

And lo and behold, as if by magic, as if the good fairy had come one night, the Ministry of Energy adopted an emergency ordinance, No. 59 of 2025, transposing the RED III Directive word for word, under the imminent threat of an infringement procedure. We and Estonia were in this situation, if I recall correctly. Except that they slipped in a poison pill, as usually happens when a law is rushed through, namely: prosumers who join energy communities lose their prosumer status and become merely active customers. By losing their prosumer status, if they sell energy to that energy community, they must issue an invoice. To issue an invoice, they must register for tax purposes, pay VAT, income tax, health insurance, and fulfill all other obligations. I should mention that currently, under EU law, prosumers in Romania are exempt until December 31, 2030, from issuing invoices, paying VAT, income tax, or any other type of tax on the money they receive for the surplus energy they feed into the grid as prosumers.

Consequently, the law was passed, and it was left to the national regulator to implement it. They had several months to do so, but nothing happened; on the contrary, they attempted to undermine this European legislation. However, at our initiative, in 2024, we requested that the OECD monitor the Romanian regulator ANRE regarding energy community legislation and provide us with support. Fortunately, Romania received a grant from the European Commission, and four or five OECD commissioners are monitoring Romania regarding this energy community legislation. I serve as a sort of rapporteur at the OECD, representing Romanian civil society, and we report there any missteps the regulator takes in the area of energy community regulation.

And what do you think happens? The second version of the draft legislation for energy communities appears, as if by magic—it’s pretty much what we wanted and is fully in line with European standards. Romania adopted the legislation with a gun to its head and is implementing it with a gun to its head as well, except that the hand holding that gun is ours, together with the OECD and the European Commission.

The Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities (in Romania)

You collaborate with OECD experts and, on the other hand, you are the president of this Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities. What can be said about your association? To what extent is it representative, given that it appears, at least on the surface, shortly after the first prosumer boom, which took place before 2023? And, furthermore, what is the professional experience that led you to the position of president of this association?

The association was founded on December 13, 2023. The association was born out of the need to represent a rapidly developing segment that was booming in Romania. As I like to say, before the establishment of the Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities, prosumers were like leaves in the wind. And why do I say that? Because both prosumers and leaves perform photosynthesis—we produce energy. Wherever the wind blew, there the leaf went. Starting in late 2023, things began to change.

As for my background, I worked in the electricity sector for many years. I emigrated to Canada in the early ’90s and worked as a production manager at one of the largest neon sign companies on the West Coast of North America. We have projects from Alaska to Las Vegas. I worked with high voltage and low voltage in America. In Romania, I developed a company that specialized in exactly this, and for the past 8 years, I’ve actually been installing photovoltaic panels. By the end of 2023, I had a thorough understanding of how these photovoltaic panels work, both in terms of installation and from a technical standpoint. That’s how we got started.

The journey was quite difficult, but what I can tell you is that today, as we speak, we are the largest NGO in Romania in terms of the number of paying members. We have over 1,850 paying members. The annual membership fee is 20 euros and is valid for 12 months. We organize regional meetings with our members, because it’s important for people to associate a real person with a Facebook profile, a photo, or a TV appearance. Our press releases reach all national newspapers and publications. We are featured on the most important national television networks and are a very powerful voice. This is also why we are taken seriously, why we gain about 100 new members every month, and why Romanians understand that only by uniting can we change the law.

You should know that, for example, there are over 12,000 associations in Romania, and 107 of them have the word “energy” in their name. But the only ones who have truly changed anything in the energy sector in Romania are us, the members of the Association of Prosumers and Energy Communities. And we are very proud of that.

The energy sector in Romania

To conclude our discussion, Romania is a country very rich in energy resources of all kinds. On the other hand, it likely has the highest electricity prices in the European Union. To what extent are Romania’s energy ambitions being realized, and in what areas do you believe, from your perspective, that more action should be taken?

Romania has a variety of production capacities: we have plenty of water, we have sunshine—just like in your country—and we have nuclear energy—again, just like in your country. However, unlike you, we do not have pumped-storage hydroelectric plants. We have a project that would have a capacity of around 3 MW (or GW, ed.), which no one is taking on, and we all continue to pay for projects and feasibility studies. As far as I know, your country has three small pumped-storage hydroelectric plants.

Romania, unfortunately, I believe is the last bastion in Eastern Europe where there is a desire to maintain expensive energy. This is, in a way, captive to the state, since over 80% of energy production belongs to the state. The state wants expensive energy because it receives considerable dividends from the companies it owns that produce it. The state also wants expensive energy because it collects a corresponding amount of VAT from it. From our perspective, after VAT and fuel excise taxes (diesel, gasoline, and others), the price of energy is the main pillar. These are the three elements that keep the state afloat, on the surface.

We do, in fact, have very expensive energy relative to both purchasing power and production capacity. I can give you an example I know very well: Hidroelectrica. We might say that Hidroelectrica is a blessing for Romania, but it turns out that Hidroelectrica produces energy at a cost four times higher than its counterparts in Canada. And we’re talking here about hydroelectric production via gravity—not about other complex technologies; the water simply flows from the hills down to the valley, from the mountains to the plains. Just so you know, in Canada, in British Columbia—where I lived for a good part of my life—95% of energy is currently produced via hydroelectric power and costs 45 bani, that is, less than 10 cents, delivered to the consumer’s doorstep, with all taxes, transportation, VAT, and distribution included. In contrast, Hidroelectrica sells to the public for 45 bani directly at the hydroelectric plant’s gate, meaning without transportation, without taxes, without absolutely anything, without VAT, and without excise taxes.

Energy in Romania is heavily taxed, just as its transportation is extremely expensive. Active energy—the energy actually produced at the hydroelectric plant or at the terminals of our inverter—accounts for only 40% of the final price on the bill. The remaining 60% consists of all sorts of taxes, some more fantastical than others, and VAT. The goal is to keep energy prices high, and this provides a temporary financial advantage for the Romanian state, which, in our view, would otherwise face a major challenge in maintaining its budgetary stability.

Photo: Dan Pîrșan (source: The Bridge of Friendship)

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