Energy #15 Legislative focus

The Senate rejected the legislative proposal establishing Romania’s framework for the transition of heating and cooling systems towards renewable sources and efficient technologies. The Senate was the decisive chamber.

The proposal was linked to PNRR Component 6, Reform 6, Milestone 128. It had reached the final vote after the relevant committees issued a joint report recommending adoption with amendments.

The final committee text included rules on sustainable biomass, annual renewable energy targets for heating and cooling, local heating and cooling plans, district-heating modernisation, individual metering in buildings connected to centralised heating systems and changes to ANRE’s regulatory responsibilities.

The bill received 66 votes in favour. It required 68 votes for adoption.

The rejection leaves Romania without the legislative vehicle intended to organise several parts of the heating and cooling transition in a single framework.

The committee version would have placed direct obligations on economic operators using large biomass installations and on operators selling forest biomass for energy purposes. It would also have introduced annual reporting and verification requirements on biomass sustainability and traceability.

For municipalities, the proposal would have required local heating and cooling plans in localities with at least 20,000 inhabitants, together with reporting obligations that could affect eligibility for centrally managed national and non-reimbursable funding programmes.

For district-heating operators, the proposed framework included updated rules on corporate governance, decarbonisation indicators, metering and the use of emerging technologies, including large-scale heat pumps, waste-heat recovery, thermal storage and flexible cogeneration.

The PNRR commitment does not disappear because the bill was rejected. The policy objective remains, but the Government or Parliament will need to identify a new legislative route.

The immediate issue is not implementation by companies. It is uncertainty over how and when the biomass, renewable heat and local-planning provisions will return, and whether they will reappear in the same form or through separate legislative instruments.

ANRE Order No. 50/2026 was published in the Official Gazette on 30 June 2026. The order establishes the National Register of Energy Communities and the procedure through which citizen energy communities and renewable energy communities are registered.

The order gives an energy community operational status from the date on which ANRE issues the registration decision. The community then has 180 days to submit the additional documents needed to demonstrate compliance with the applicable legal and technical criteria.

The Register will include a public section with non-sensitive information, such as the type and location of the community, number of members, installed capacity and registration status. Distribution operators must also submit monthly aggregated data to ANRE on connected energy communities.

The final version removes the preliminary-registration concept and the suspension mechanism included in the consultation draft. A community that does not yet meet all requirements may instead be recorded as partially compliant or non-compliant, without automatically losing its operational status.

The order creates the administrative entry point for energy communities in Romania. Until now, the legal framework recognised these entities, but there was no standardised national procedure for registration, identification and monitoring.

For prospective communities, the practical significance is that registration no longer depends on demonstrating full compliance with every condition from the outset. This may allow projects to enter the regulatory system while certain technical or documentary requirements are still being completed.

For distribution operators, the order creates a recurring data-reporting obligation and gives ANRE a formal mechanism for monitoring connected communities. The treatment of smart-meter delays is also relevant. A community will not be held responsible where the delay is attributable to the distribution operator and the community can demonstrate that it has taken the required steps.

The registration procedure is already in force. Communities that are legally constituted can now enter the Register, while distribution operators will need to prepare for the reporting obligations attached to the new framework.

ANRE has republished for public consultation a draft order amending the Electricity Supply Regulation approved by ANRE Order No. 5/2023. The proposal has not been adopted. Comments may be submitted until 15 July 2026.

The draft sets out the operational framework for energy sharing in the retail electricity market. It defines the role of the principal supplier, shared electricity, surplus electricity and the internal operating rules of an energy community.

Under the proposed model, the community would conclude a contract with each member for shared electricity. The member would retain a separate contract with a principal supplier for the electricity taken from the public network. A multipartite agreement between the community, the distribution operator and the principal supplier would govern metering, data exchange, allocation, billing, settlement and complaints.

The draft would allow communities to allocate shared electricity either proportionally to each member’s actual consumption in each settlement interval or through fixed allocation percentages established by the community. The distribution operator would determine and validate the allocated quantities, which would then become the basis for billing and settlement.

The proposal would also introduce obligations for electricity suppliers that apply more broadly to final customers. Suppliers would need to provide a free online account, with access to consumption data, invoices, payments, contract information and self-reading functions. Customers could also activate an optional notification when consumption reaches a preset threshold of up to 80% of the estimated monthly consumption in the consumption convention.

The draft further tightens the rules for early-termination charges in fixed-price contracts. Any charge would need to reflect direct economic losses, be based on a transparent and verifiable methodology and be notified to ANRE before application.

This is the missing operational layer for energy communities. The adopted registration order determines how a community enters the system. This draft determines how energy can be allocated, measured, invoiced and settled once the community operates in the electricity market.

For suppliers, the proposal would require changes to contract structures, billing processes, customer interfaces and methodologies for early-termination charges. Principal suppliers would remain responsible for balancing the electricity taken from the network and for the network contracts associated with members’ consumption points.

For distribution operators, the main issue is the proposed role in determining and validating shared-energy quantities. The draft also requires concessionary distribution operators to implement the necessary IT functionalities for allocation by 1 October 2026. That deadline is not binding at this stage and may change before adoption.

For energy communities, the draft would require internal rules covering governance, allocation algorithms, surplus management, imbalance allocation, revenue distribution, data protection, billing and rules for vulnerable members.

The consultation closes on 15 July 2026. This is the stage at which suppliers, distribution operators, aggregators and prospective energy communities can still raise implementation issues, particularly on IT readiness, allocation rules, billing responsibilities and the relationship between communities and licensed market participants.