Romania’s energy regulator ANRE has published a third version of proposed rules for electricity sharing, supply, balancing and billing, with consultation open until Oct. 16. The draft focuses on how energy communities handle procurement and settlement when local generation does not match member consumption in each settlement period. The rules outline two commercial structures, including a separation between a residual supplier and a single supplier.
Two supplier structures for community electricity and grid purchases
Under the residual model, members receive part of their electricity through the energy community and buy only the remaining volume required from the grid from their chosen supplier. The alternative is a single-supplier structure in which one supplier covers the member’s entire electricity demand. ANRE’s proposal also allows an energy community to become the supplier if it obtains the required electricity-supply licence.
This approach shifts Romania’s energy-community model beyond shared generation. It creates a retail-market setting in which community operators, established suppliers and specialist energy-service companies compete over procurement, balancing, billing and the relationship with individual members. The draft links the commercial design to ongoing differences between production and consumption within communities.
Balancing, forecasting and procurement under residual and single-supplier models
A community that includes households, municipal buildings or small businesses will rarely produce exactly as much electricity as it consumes in every settlement period. Generation can exceed demand at times, while at other times members require substantial electricity from the wider market. Managing that difference creates a continuing procurement requirement for electricity not produced within the community.
In the residual-supplier structure, the community can retain control of internally produced electricity while an external retailer fills the gap. This design is intended to allow existing electricity suppliers to participate without taking over the entire community structure. The single-supplier model goes further by allowing one company to manage both community electricity and external procurement, bundling shared generation, market purchases, balancing and customer billing into one product.
The draft notes that large retailers could benefit because they already have electricity-procurement systems, balancing capabilities and billing infrastructure. It also describes potential room for different competitors if an energy community reaches sufficient scale to obtain a supply licence and operate as its own retail-energy company. In that case, the community’s role extends beyond renewable generation ownership to controlling the customer relationship.
Potential services supported by portfolio-style management
The proposed framework identifies additional services that could be offered when communities control customer relationships. These include demand response, storage optimisation, dynamic tariffs and aggregation. It also describes how a community with several hundred customers and granular consumption data could manage electricity as a portfolio.
In portfolio management, solar electricity could be allocated first to participating members. Storage could absorb part of surplus generation, while flexible loads could be shifted toward periods of higher community production. Only the remaining requirement would need to be purchased from the market.
Implementation roles for software platforms and distribution operators
The draft describes a more sophisticated supplier role under either structure. Suppliers would need to forecast both consumption and community generation, manage imbalances and determine how much electricity must be sourced externally. Improved forecasting and optimisation are linked to reducing exposure to potentially expensive market purchases.
It also points to opportunities for software providers alongside conventional utilities. Community-management platforms would need to coordinate metering data, allocation algorithms, contracts, settlement and billing across multiple customers. Romania’s distribution operators are assigned a central role because they must determine and validate quantities of shared electricity allocated to individual consumption points.
Under the proposed timetable, distribution operators would have until Dec. 31, 2026 to implement IT functionality required for shared-energy allocation. The draft presents digital infrastructure as an immediate bottleneck because efficient operation depends on accurate allocation of generation and consumption data across members for each settlement period.
Municipal renewable projects and recurring revenue considerations
The emerging model is described as creating a service chain involving distribution operators, electricity retailers, community managers, software providers, aggregators and balancing-responsible parties. It could also affect how municipalities approach local renewable projects developed for schools, public buildings and local residents. Under this approach, such projects would not need to be viewed solely as electricity production.
The draft states that the community itself could become an energy-services platform managing supply across multiple public and private customers. For investors, it cites recurring revenue elements including generation income from owning solar panels and additional revenue streams from operating the community relationship such as supply margins, administration fees, optimisation services and potentially flexibility revenues. The rules remain under consultation, with final ANRE requirements potentially changing before adoption.