The Contract for Difference is the single most important instrument standing between a Romanian renewable project and a bank's credit committee. It converts a merchant-exposed asset into a contracted one. Two auction rounds and a third tender in, it now has a track record worth reading closely — and the headline lesson is that strike prices are falling fast.
The mechanism, in one paragraph
Under a two-way CfD, a generator's revenue is stabilised at a contracted strike price for fifteen years, settled against a market reference. When the market price falls below the strike, the State pays the difference; when it rises above, the generator pays it back. The practical consequence is the one that matters to a lender: the bank underwrites a strike price, not a price forecast. The revenue line stops being a merchant assumption and becomes a contracted cash flow.
A contract, not a promise
The scheme was approved by the European Commission on 6 March 2024 — a €3 billion envelope financed through the Modernisation Fund and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with fifteen-year contract terms. Because the support lives under an EU State Aid approval, its terms cannot be cut by national decree alone: any material change requires Romania to re-notify Brussels. That is the difference between policy support that is a promise and policy support that is a contract — and it is why a CfD strike is bankable in a way that a feed-in tariff set by ministerial mood is not.
The track record: three rounds, falling strikes
The first three procurement rounds tell a clear story. Solar cleared aggressively and got cheaper; wind cleared higher and repeatedly under-filled its quota.
| Round | Result date | Solar awarded | Solar avg strike | Wind awarded | Wind avg strike |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | Dec 2024 | 432 MW | €51/MWh | 1,096 MW | €65/MWh |
| Round 2 | Aug 2025 | ~1,488 MW | €40.5/MWh | ~1,260 MW | €73.8/MWh |
| Round 3 | Nov 2025 | — (wind-only) | — | ~316 MW | €60–75/MWh |
Round 1 was capped at €91/MWh (solar) and €93/MWh (wind). Round 2 offered 3,472 MW (1,472 solar / 2,000 wind) but a third of the wind quota went unallocated. Round 3 offered 290 MW of onshore wind at an €80/MWh cap.
What the numbers tell an investor
The solar story is the one to internalise. The average solar strike fell from €51/MWh in December 2024 to €40.5/MWh by August 2025 — a ~21% compression in eight months, driven by competition and falling capex. There are two ways to read that, and a serious investor holds both at once.
Reading one: Romanian solar is genuinely low-cost, and bidders can clear at €40/MWh and still finance. Reading two — the more important one: as strikes converge toward the cost floor, the value of a CfD shifts. It is no longer primarily a fat spread over cost; it is contracted certainty. The instrument's worth is the elimination of fifteen years of merchant price risk, not a guaranteed margin. Investors who underwrote Round 1 strikes captured both; investors entering now are buying the certainty, and must be sharper on capex and execution to protect equity returns.
Wind tells the opposite story. Round 2 left roughly a third of its wind quota unallocated, and Round 3 was a small wind-only tender that cleared at €60–75/MWh. Wind economics in Romania are tighter and siting is harder — a signal that the near-term bankable pipeline is solar-led, with wind selective.
The window is narrowing
The CfD is the difference between underwriting a price forecast and underwriting a contract. But the most attractive strikes have already been awarded — each round has cleared lower than the last.
For an investor entering Romanian PV today, the CfD remains the cleanest route to a bankable revenue line: EUR-denominated, fifteen years, protected by an EU State Aid contract rather than a national promise. The strategic implication is timing. Strikes are compressing, and a ready-to-build project that can enter the next round — rather than wait two more — locks a higher contracted price against a falling curve. In a maturing auction market, the premium is on being ready, not on being early to the idea.
Sources: European Commission, press release IP/24/1329, €3bn Romanian CfD scheme approved 6 March 2024; Romanian Ministry of Energy, CfD Round 1 results (December 2024) and Round 2 results (August 2025); Round 3 onshore-wind tender (Q4 2025); pv magazine; Enerdata; Balkan Green Energy News. Figures are awarded averages reported by the Ministry and trade press; individual project strikes vary.
This note is general market commentary, not investment advice. Strike prices and returns described are indicative and historical; no outcome is guaranteed. SolarPlants is the commercial brand of VERDEVOLT PROIECT S.R.L.