Market Entry Decision Support in the Romanian Energy Market

Our client, a Western European energy company, was considering international expansion and had identified Romania as a potential target market. However, it lacked a reliable, structured understanding of the market to support its entry decision.

Our mandate had two key objectives:

• provide a comprehensive assessment of the Romanian energy market, with a particular focus on local market characteristics.
• develop forward-looking scenarios for the market’s evolution, providing a strong basis for the market-entry decision.

To develop a deep understanding of the market, we systematically assessed all relevant areas — from the macroeconomic environment to future price scenarios.

1. Market overview - macroeconomic analysis and four expert interviews
2. Supply and demand - analysis of 5 years of hourly historical data to assess generation and consumption patterns, as well as trading and balancing market dynamics
3. Power plant commissioning and decommissioning - mapping the expected commissioning and de-commissioning of all major power plants over a 15-year horizon
4. Interconnectors - assessment of cross-border capacity and utilisation across neighbouring markets from 2022 to 2040
5. Price dynamics and regional comparison - analysis of the main drivers of power prices and the distribution of price spreads
6. Forward-looking analysis - modelling eight different future electricity price scenarios

The client received a comprehensive decision-support package within a short timeframe, covering both the current state of the sector and a range of forward-looking scenarios — directly supporting the market-entry decision.

Key findings on the Romanian market:

• Largely liberalised market: the market is largely liberalised in line with EU directives, while the state remains a dominant owner in power generation. Investment decisions are often shaped by national security and political considerations.
• Strong regional integration: Romanian power prices closely track Hungarian prices, while expanding interconnector capacity continues to ease bottlenecks.
• Declining price trajectory: wholesale power prices could fall from approximately EUR 105/MWh in 2025 to EUR 83/MWh by 2032, although they remain around 18% above German levels.
• Rapid shift in the generation mix: a full coal phase-out is expected by 2032, with capacity replaced by gas-fired CCGT, new nuclear capacity - including two large units and one SMR - as well as solar and wind.
• Short-term supply tightness: limited baseload capacity may create near-term pressure, while Romania could become a net exporter over the longer term.