Photon Energy starts construction on second PV power plant in Romania

Photon Energy announces that it has broken ground on the construction of its second Romanian PV power plant, which will have a generation capacity of 4.7 MWp. High-efficiency bifacial solar modules mounted on single-axis trackers will deliver around 6.8 GWh of renewable energy annually to the grid of Distributie Energie Electrica Romania, which will be sold on the energy market on a merchant basis, without any support or a power purchase agreement with an energy offtaker. The new power plant is scheduled to commence operations in the fourth quarter of 2022.

‘We are very excited to continue breaking ground in Romania, one of our key CEE markets, executing our growth strategy as announced in our 2022 Financial Guidance,’ said Georg Hotar, CEO of Photon Energy Group. ‘The power plant in Aiud marks another important step in our efforts to commission a total capacity of around 32 MWp in Romania by the end of 2022. These new assets alone will expand our IPP (independent power producer) portfolio to over 120 MWp by the end of the year.’

Located near Aiud in Romania’s Alba County, the power plant will extend over 6.6 hectares of greenfield land and will be equipped with some 8,700 solar panels.

Upon the commissioning of this plant, the company will own and operate 90 solar power plants with a combined generation capacity of 102.3 MWp in its IPP portfolio. A combined 90 MWp will be selling subsidy-free clean electricity directly on the energy market.

Currently, the company is developing PV projects in Romania with a total capacity of 236 MWp, with 115 MWp at an advanced stage of development.

The power plant will be owned and operated by Holloway Solar S.R.L., a special-purpose company fully owned by Photon Energy Group.

The company is currently developing utility-scale PV projects with a combined capacity of over 790 MWp in its key CEE markets and Australia, including 236 MWp in Romania. The remaining project development pipeline in Romania is expected to be built and commissioned in 2023 and 2024 and thus the Romanian market will significantly contribute to the Company’s goal of expanding its IPP portfolio to at least 600 MWp globally by the end of 2024.

Based on energy price forecasts for the remainder of 2022, the company reconfirms its financial guidance for consolidated revenues in 2022 to increase to EUR 65.0 million from EUR 36.4 million in 2021, representing a 78.8% increase YoY, leading to an increase of EBITDA to EUR 18.0 million from EUR 9.6 million in 2021 (+87.8% YoY).