The Establishment Authorisation after ANRE Order No. 16/2026: What Changes for Projects under Development

Since 25 May 2026, the establishment authorisation issued by ANRE can no longer be treated as a step to be dealt with “at the right moment”. ANRE Order No. 16/2026 ties the filing of the application to the date of the grid connection contract, introduces a guarantee of EUR 30/kW in favour of ANRE and sets a short deadline for the proof of financing. ANRE Order No. 15/2026, published on the same day, sets the deadline by which the authorisation must be obtained. If that deadline is missed, the technical connection permit (ATR) ceases to be valid and the connection contract terminates by operation of law.

For new projects, the rules are fairly clear. The questions arise for projects already under development: those which had an ATR and a connection contract before the reform, those with applications pending before ANRE, and those with authorisations issued subject to the subsequent submission of financing documents. Below we analyse the new rules, how they apply to these projects and the points the text leaves open.

Key takeaways

• The application for the establishment authorisation must be filed no later than 30 days after the connection contract is signed.
• On filing, a guarantee of EUR 30/kW of the installed capacity set out in the ATR (EUR 30,000/MW) must be provided, and it remains in place until the report on completion of works is signed.
• For connection contracts signed on or after 25 May 2026, the authorisation must be obtained within 12 months of the contract and 18 months of the ATR. For contracts already in force on that date (generation sites with more than 1 MW approved for injection), the deadline is 25 May 2027.
• The documents securing the financing must be submitted within the period set in the specific conditions of the authorisation, but no later than 6 months after it is granted. Failure to submit them is now an express ground for withdrawal.
• An extension of the authorisation must be requested at least 60 days before expiry. For authorisations issued before the reform, the extension is conditional on providing the guarantee.
• The draft procedure published by ANRE in August 2026 would exempt storage added to generation capacities from the guarantee. At the time of writing, the draft had not been adopted.

1. Two orders to be read together

ANRE Order No. 16 of 21 May 2026, published in the Official Gazette No. 439 of 25 May 2026, amends the Regulation on the granting of licences and authorisations in the electricity sector, approved by ANRE Order No. 6/2025 (the “Authorisation Regulation”). ANRE Order No. 15 of the same date, published in the Official Gazette No. 436 of 25 May 2026, amends, among other things, the Regulation on the connection of users to the public electricity networks, approved by ANRE Order No. 59/2013 (the “Connection Regulation”).

The first order governs the content of the application, the timing of the filing, the guarantee and the conditions under which the authorisation is extended or withdrawn. The second sets the deadline by which the authorisation must be obtained and the consequences for the grid connection if it is not. Anyone analysing a project timeline on the basis of a single order risks reaching the wrong conclusions.

The authorisation requirement is not new. Under Article 6 of the Authorisation Regulation, ANRE issues establishment authorisations for generation and cogeneration capacities and for storage facilities, including those not added to a generation capacity, where the maximum electrical power fed into the grid is or becomes greater than 1 MW. The threshold is unchanged. What has changed is when the application must be filed, the cost of access to the procedure and the effects of a delay.

2. The timeline: filing, obtaining, completing the file

Filing: no later than 30 days after the connection contract

In its new wording, Article 19(1) of the Authorisation Regulation allows the application to be filed from the date the ATR is issued and requires it to be filed no later than 30 days after the connection contract is signed. The file must include, as a new document, proof that the financial guarantee has been provided (Article 19(1)(o)).

In practice, a short period starts to run from the signing of the connection contract, within which the file must be finalised and the guarantee instrument issued. Obtaining a bank guarantee letter or an insurance policy usually takes several weeks, and the land documents, the environmental permit and the financing documents have their own timelines. The ANRE file should therefore be prepared before the connection contract is signed.

The building permit is not a condition for filing. If it has been obtained, it may replace, together with the site plan endorsed as final, the land documents and the land book extracts (Article 19(2)). The fact that it has not yet been issued does not justify postponing the filing.

Obtaining: 12 months from the contract, 18 months from the ATR

The deadlines for obtaining the authorisation are found in the Connection Regulation, in the new Article 36(5²), introduced by Order No. 15/2026. For generation sites, or combined consumption and generation sites, with an approved injection capacity above 1 MW, the establishment authorisation must be obtained by the time the contract for the execution of the connection installation is signed, but no later than 12 months after the connection contract is signed and 18 months after the ATR is issued. Where the design and execution of the connection installation are contracted under Article 44(4)(b), only the 12- and 18-month limits apply (Article 36(5³)).

The 12- and 18-month limits apply cumulatively, and the relevant deadline is whichever expires first. If, for example, the connection contract is signed 10 months after the ATR is issued, the project has 8 months left to obtain the authorisation, not 12. Order No. 15/2026 sets similar deadlines for the building permit (Article 36(5) and (5¹)), so the two permits must be tracked in parallel.

Permitted extensions

The Connection Regulation allows two adjustments to the deadline for obtaining the authorisation:

• if ANRE finds, before the deadline expires, that the application and the documentation are complete, the deadline is extended by up to 60 days, as needed to issue and communicate the authorisation (Article 36(5⁴));
• the network operator may extend the deadline once, by up to 12 months, if the user submits documents showing that the authorisation cannot be obtained in time for justified reasons not attributable to the user (Article 36(5⁵)). The operator must reply in writing within 10 working days. Absent a reply, the deadline is extended automatically by the length of the delay, but by no more than 12 months (Article 36(5⁶) and (5⁷)).

If the authorisation is not obtained within these deadlines, the ATR ceases to be valid, the connection contract terminates by operation of law (Article 36(6¹)) and the guarantee provided in favour of the network operator is enforced (Article 31(6)(e)). The sanction is attached to the deadline for obtaining the authorisation, not to the 30-day filing deadline. Missing the filing deadline carries its own risks, however, which we discuss below.

The difference between a filed application and a complete one

ANRE may request additional documents within 60 calendar days of the registration of the application, and the applicant in turn has 60 days to respond (Article 30(1) and (2) of the Authorisation Regulation). Documentation that remains incomplete is closed when the deadline for obtaining the authorisation expires (Article 30(3)(b)). If, however, ANRE finds before that deadline that the documentation is complete, the file is no longer closed and the authorisation is granted within 60 days (Article 30(6)).

The protection therefore depends on ANRE’s finding, not on the applicant’s own view that its file is complete. A realistic timeline must leave room for at least one round of additional requests.

3. The EUR 30/kW guarantee

How it is calculated

Under the new Article 19¹(1) of the Authorisation Regulation, the guarantee is EUR 30/kW and is calculated on the installed electrical capacity set out in the ATR, for each generation technology. If provided in lei, the NBR exchange rate on the day the guarantee is provided applies. What matters is the installed capacity, not the capacity approved for injection: for a photovoltaic park with 100 MW installed and 80 MW approved for injection, the guarantee is EUR 3 million, not EUR 2.4 million.

For storage, the calculation is likewise based on power, not on energy capacity. For a 50 MW / 100 MWh storage facility that does not fall under any exemption, the guarantee would be EUR 1.5 million.

Form and duration

The guarantee must be irrevocable, unconditional and payable on ANRE’s first demand, in a form agreed by the authority. Permitted forms are a guarantee letter issued by a credit institution, a guarantee instrument issued by a non-banking financial institution or an insurance company (in both cases, entities registered in the EU/EEA and authorised to operate in Romania), and a transfer into an account opened with the State Treasury (Article 19¹(3)).

The guarantee must be maintained until the report on completion of the construction works for the plant is issued. The reference point is not commissioning, the commercial operation licence or the commercial operation date under the EPC contract, but the acceptance of the construction works. This distinction should be borne in mind when negotiating construction contracts and financing documents.

Enforcement and release

ANRE enforces the guarantee if the holder does not complete the project and sign the completion report within the validity period of the authorisation, or if it abandons the project (Article 19¹(4)). The amounts collected go to the state budget. The guarantee is returned or released within 30 days of the holder’s request, accompanied by the completion report (Article 19¹(7)). Where the authorisation is extended, the guarantee is maintained until acceptance (Article 19¹(8)).

The guarantee is not enforced if the project was delayed or not completed for reasons beyond the investor’s control, evidenced by official documents or enforceable titles filed with ANRE within the validity period of the authorisation (Article V(1) of Order No. 16/2026). If the investor obtains such documents after enforcement, it may request a refund from the competent tax authorities (Article V(2)). The deadline for filing the evidence is strict, however, so a delay file kept up to date throughout the project is worth far more than one reconstructed after enforcement has started.

Exemptions currently in force

Under Article II(1) of Order No. 16/2026, the guarantee is not owed by:

• applicants who prove that they have provided the performance guarantee under a contract for difference (CfD) concluded in accordance with the law;
• applicants for authorisations for repowering that does not increase the installed capacity set out in the ATR.

For hybrid projects and for repowering with an increase in capacity, the guarantee is calculated only on the increase in capacity between the initial and the updated ATR (Article II(2)). For example, for repowering from 40 MW to 55 MW installed, the guarantee is EUR 450,000.

The CfD exemption requires proof of the performance guarantee under the contract; mere participation in the auction is not enough. The order as currently in force provides no exemption for storage.

4. Projects under development: the right classification

There is no single category of “projects in progress”. The effects of the reform depend on the date of the connection contract, on whether an application is pending before ANRE, and on the stage and conditions of the authorisation. The main situations, for generation sites with an approved injection capacity above 1 MW, are the following.

• Connection contract signed on or after 25 May 2026 – The new regime applies in full: filing within 30 days, guarantee, authorisation within the 12/18-month deadlines, with the extensions under Article 36(5⁴)–(5⁷) (Article V(2) of Order No. 15/2026).
• Contract signed in 2026, before 25 May, no authorisation – The authorisation must be obtained by 25 May 2027 (Article V(3)). The network operator may extend the deadline by up to 12 months for reasons not attributable to the user (Article V(4)).
• Contract signed before 2026, no authorisation – Same deadline, 25 May 2027. Article V(4) does not apply to these contracts, so there is no express basis for an extension by the operator.
• Application filed with ANRE before 25 May 2026 and still pending – The guarantee applies to applications filed after 25 May 2026 (Article II of Order No. 16/2026), so it does not appear to be owed for this application. The deadline for obtaining the authorisation under Order No. 15/2026 still applies.
• Authorisation issued before 25 May 2026 and still valid – Simply continuing the project does not trigger the obligation to provide the guarantee. The guarantee becomes a condition for any subsequent request for extension or amendment (Articles II and III).
• Authorisation issued subject to the submission of financing documents – The order also applies to these holders, regardless of the date of issue (Article IV). The deadline in the specific conditions must be checked immediately; missing it may lead to withdrawal.

The 30-day deadline for older contracts

Order No. 16/2026 contains no transitional rule for the filing deadline. For a connection contract signed in, say, 2024, the 30-day period would have expired long before the obligation came into existence. The conclusion that these projects are automatically in breach is hard to sustain. It would mean applying retroactively an obligation whose breach also constitutes an administrative offence, contrary to Article 15(2) of the Constitution, and would conflict with the transitional deadline expressly granted by Order No. 15/2026 for obtaining the authorisation.

On the other hand, the opposite solution is not expressly provided for either. The order does not set a new 30-day period running from 25 May 2026, nor does it expressly allow the application to be filed at any time before 25 May 2027. Until ANRE clarifies the point, our recommendation is to file the application as soon as possible and as complete as possible, accompanied, where appropriate, by a written request for clarification of the applicable timeline. It should be borne in mind that, for an application filed now, the EUR 30/kW guarantee is owed, since the application post-dates the entry into force of the order.

The additional 60 days do not apply to older contracts

Article V(4) of Order No. 15/2026 extends to contracts signed in 2026 before the reform only paragraphs (5⁵)–(5⁸) of Article 36, not paragraph (5⁴), which grants the additional 60 days for issuing the authorisation once ANRE finds the file complete. For contracts already in force, Article V(5) ties the termination of the ATR and of the contract to the failure to obtain the authorisation within the deadline in paragraph (3), taking into account only paragraph (4).

The practical effect is significant. Article 30(6) of the Authorisation Regulation prevents a complete file from being closed and requires ANRE to issue the authorisation within 60 days, but this rule concerns the procedure before ANRE, not the validity of the ATR. For a project with an older contract, an authorisation issued after 25 May 2027 may come too late for the grid connection. The timeline must be planned so that the authorisation is obtained before that date, not merely so that a complete file is lodged in the final weeks.

5. Financing: from commitment to proof

The Authorisation Regulation still allows pre-contractual financing documents to be filed together with the application. The new wording of Article 19(3), however, requires the documents securing the financing of the works to be submitted within the period set in the specific conditions of the authorisation, but no later than 6 months after it is granted. Failure to comply is now an express ground for withdrawal of the authorisation (Article 45(j)).

Withdrawal does not mean the authorisation is lost for good. The order introduces a simplified resumption procedure: the new file contains the documents securing the financing, a note on the time needed to complete the project and a statement on whether the elements considered at the first authorisation are maintained or changed, and the fee is the one applicable to extensions (Article 19(3¹) and (3²)). In addition, the rule under which ANRE does not grant authorisations to operators sanctioned in the past 5 years with the withdrawal of an authorisation does not apply to those who subsequently prove their financing (Article 16(1¹)). Resuming the procedure does not, however, revive the withdrawn authorisation, and the effects on the grid connection must be analysed separately (section 7).

Article IV of Order No. 16/2026 provides that the order applies to all holders of authorisations issued subject to the submission of financing documents, whether issued before or after 25 May 2026. The text grants no new 6-month period from the entry into force. These holders must first check the deadline set in the specific conditions of their authorisation and whether it has been met. If the deadline has passed, the risk of withdrawal under Article 45(j) is a present one.

Where the financing comes from shareholders or from other individuals or companies, the Regulation also requires evidence that the financiers have the necessary resources (Article 19(1)(h)). The EUR 30/kW guarantee does not replace the proof of financing; the two obligations are distinct.

6. Extension of the authorisation

The extension request must be filed at least 60 days before the authorisation expires (Article 13(2) and Article 41(1)). A request filed later is treated as an application for a new authorisation (Article 13(3)). In the new context, this reclassification has important consequences: a new application requires a complete file and the provision of the guarantee, and if the authorisation expires in the meantime, the 6-month period after which the connection contract terminates starts to run (section 7).

The extension file must explain why the works were not completed, describe the works performed and those remaining, with an estimate of their value, and include, among other things, a valid ATR and environmental permit (Article 41(3)). For authorisations issued before 25 May 2026, an extension requested after that date is conditional on providing the guarantee, and the proof must be filed together with the request (Article III of Order No. 16/2026). The guarantee is no longer required if the report on completion of works has already been signed (Article 41(3)(f)).

For a 100 MW project authorised in 2025 and behind schedule, the extension requires a guarantee of EUR 3 million, calculated on the full installed capacity in the ATR, regardless of the stage of the works. We recommend starting to prepare the request at least 4 months before expiry, to leave enough time for the guarantee instrument to be issued.

7. Effects on the grid connection

Order No. 15/2026 ties the fate of the connection contract to the establishment authorisation even after the authorisation has been obtained. For generation sites with an approved injection capacity above 1 MW, the connection contract terminates by operation of law 6 months after the authorisation ceases to be valid, unless ANRE has granted a new authorisation within that period (Article 36(6²) of the Connection Regulation). In the same situation, the connection guarantee is also enforced (Article 31(6)(f)). If the authorisation ceased through withdrawal, ANRE may set a longer period in the withdrawal decision (Article 36(6³)).

The 6 months are not a grace period for continuing works under an expired authorisation. They merely offer the possibility of obtaining a new authorisation without losing the grid connection, and a new application filed after 25 May 2026 requires, as a rule, the provision of the guarantee.

For new applications, the guarantee provided in favour of the network operator is 20% of the connection tariff excluding VAT (Article 31(3¹)). The increase does not apply to applications for which the operator had communicated the amount of the guarantee before 25 May 2026 (Article V(1) of Order No. 15/2026). The connection guarantee and the guarantee owed to ANRE are distinct and cumulative.

Finally, failure to meet the deadlines in the Authorisation Regulation constitutes the administrative offence provided for in Article 93(1), point 5¹ of Law No. 123/2012 (Article VI of Order No. 16/2026), punishable, for legal entities, by a fine of between RON 10,000 and RON 200,000. For a project, however, the fine matters less than losing the deadlines on which the grid connection depends.

8. The ANRE draft of August 2026

At the end of August 2026, ANRE opened a 30-day public consultation on a draft order approving the Procedure on the provision, enforcement and return/release of the financial guarantee provided for in Article 19¹. The draft would also amend Article II of Order No. 16/2026. The main proposals are the following:

• exempting from the guarantee storage facilities added to generation capacities at the same generation/consumption site;
• clarifying that the CfD exemption covers the entire installed capacity of the beneficiary project, not only the contracted part;
• for hybrid projects, calculating the guarantee only on the capacity of the newly added facility; for photovoltaic plants, using the lower of the inverter capacity and the panel capacity, as set out in the ATR;
• a guarantee duration at least equal to the requested validity of the authorisation plus 12 months, with a similar rule in case of extension;
• enforcing the guarantee also where the application is closed or the applicant withdraws it;
• not enforcing guarantees already provided for capacities that would become exempt.

At the time of writing (15 October 2026), the draft had not been adopted. The latest order in ANRE’s public register is Order No. 64 of 13 October 2026, and none of the orders issued after the draft was published concerns this procedure. The proposals therefore cannot be applied as law in force. Two of them deserve close attention: enforcement of the guarantee where the application is closed, which would turn an incomplete file into a direct financial risk, and the additional 12 months of validity, which will be reflected in the cost of guarantee instruments.

9. Our recommendations

1. Prepare a fact sheet for each project, based on the original documents: the date of the ATR and of any updates, the date of the connection contract, the date of the ANRE application, the date of issue, the conditions and the expiry date of the authorisation. On this basis, each project falls into one of the situations described in section 4.
2. Determine the applicable deadline for obtaining the authorisation (12/18 months or 25 May 2027) and identify the limit that expires first.
3. For projects with a contract in force and no authorisation: file the application as soon as possible, with a margin that allows for at least one round of additional requests and for the authorisation to be issued before 25 May 2027.
4. Start early discussions with banks or insurers on the guarantee instrument: amount, duration, collateral, extension mechanism.
5. Check the specific conditions of authorisations issued subject to financing and the deadline for submitting the documents.
6. Set internal deadlines for extension requests, at least 4 months before the authorisation expires.
7. Keep a delay file, updated continuously (correspondence with the authorities and the network operator, official documents), useful both for invoking Article V of Order No. 16/2026 and for a possible extension request to the network operator.
8. In transactions and financings: reconstruct the full chronology as part of due diligence and allocate contractually the risks relating to the guarantee, the deadlines and the acceptance of works (conditions precedent, cost of the instrument, liability for delays).
9. Monitor the ANRE draft of August 2026, especially for co-located storage and for CfD projects.

Conclusion

Order No. 16/2026 does not require existing projects to be re-authorised, but it does not leave them untouched either. The guarantee, the deadline for the proof of financing and the new extension rules become relevant precisely at the moments when the project needs ANRE: on filing the application, on extension, on amendment or when the financing conditions are checked. Combined with the deadlines in Order No. 15/2026, these moments may decide whether the project keeps its grid connection.

For developers, lenders and investors, the establishment authorisation must be managed together with the grid connection, the financing and the guarantees, on the basis of a timeline drawn up separately for each project.

Sources

• ANRE Order No. 16/2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 439 of 25 May 2026
• ANRE Order No. 15/2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 436 of 25 May 2026
• Regulation on the granting of licences and authorisations in the electricity sector, approved by ANRE Order No. 6/2025, consolidated version
• Regulation on the connection of users to the public electricity networks, approved by ANRE Order No. 59/2013, as subsequently amended and supplemented
• Electricity and Natural Gas Law No. 123/2012, Article 93
• ANRE, Draft order approving the Procedure on the provision, enforcement and return/release of the financial guarantee provided for in Article 19¹ of the Regulation approved by ANRE Order No. 6/2025, submitted to public consultation in August 2026

This article is for information purposes only and reflects the legislation published up to 15 October 2026. It does not constitute legal advice on any specific matter; the classification of a project requires an analysis of its documents and of the specific conditions of its authorisation.