RENEWABLE ENERGY

Fair Spirit Shipping made a commitment to diversify into renewable energy back in 2011, and started implementing a plan to set up a medium-sized solar park in Tulcea, a region with the maximum number of sun-hours in Romania. Located on a 10-hectare plot around 10 kilometers from Tulcea city centre, the Fair Spirit solar park offers unprecedented advantages for the local economy by brining cheap power to the local pool, supporting industrial development in the city, and indirectly creating new jobs.

Besides being strategically close to transmission towers linking high-tension electricity cables to the national grid, the solar park gets sunlight throughout the year, with only a possible 78 days in the 12-month cycle when power generation may be below average. Tulcea also happens to border Ukraine and Republic of Moldova, both of whom are energy deficient, giving the project a possible outlet for the power export market.

Solar energy is rapidly growing in Europe because the cost of setting up generation capacity continues to drop even as the technology keeps improving. Perhaps the most significant reason why solar energy will become a game-changer in the electricity market is that traditional utility operators own less than 1% of Europe‘s installed solar capacity; the remaining 99% is owned by investors, project developers, households and private companies. Solar has the capacity to grow even without government subsidy because it will shortly become cheaper than grid power for households and medium sized industries.

Renewable energy will continue to see steady growth in the coming years as Romania‘s traditional lignite power plants are decommissioned. Tulcea solar park delivers exceptional value by cleanly and efficiently producing a commodity – clean energy – that will be in growing demand over the coming decades. It will also benefit the community by not generating a large carbon footprint unlike coal-fired power plants.