Ingka Group, the owner of Swedish shopping chain IKEA, has acquired a 300MW solar PV project in Dâmbovița County, Romania.
The project, representing an investment of over €200 million (US$211 million) from Ingka Group’s investment arm, is ready-to-build and expected to be operational in the latter part of 2025. It forms part of IKEA’s corporate plan to become ‘climate positive’ by 2030, by which it aims to “reduce more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than the IKEA value chain emits”, and halve the absolute emissions from its entire supply chain.
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“The development of this solar park project in Dâmbovița County is another step towards renewable energy production in the region and a chance for Ingka Investments to contribute to the country’s energy mix and renewable energy consumption goals for 2030. With our own solar park, we want to make renewable energy available throughout the IKEA value chain and beyond in the areas in which we operate,” said Peter van der Poel, managing director, Ingka Investments.
Romania is one of the most promising emerging markets for European solar PV. In September the government launched the first round of its Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme, seeking 1GW of Solar PV projects for development over the coming years. The CfD scheme drew the attention of solar developers ahead of its inauguration – as discussed in a PV Tech Premium article earlier this year – as the country seeks to hit its goal of 3.7GW of installed solar capacity by 2030.
One of the larger players in the market so far is Polish independent power producer (IPP) R.Power, which entered into a joint venture with French asset manager Eiffel Investment Group to develop 1GW worth of PV projects across Romania.
For its part, Ingka Inevstments said that it already owns over 170MW worth of wind power assets in Romania. Its solar PV assets are wide-reaching, having recently acquired a minority stake in a 460MWp Italian portfolio. Earlier this year, the company also signed a long-term agreement with Swiss solar manufacturer Meyer Burger to deploy the latter’s heterojunction technology (HJT) modules at its sites in the US.
PV Tech publisher Solar Media will be organising the third edition of Large Scale Solar CEE in Warsaw, Poland 14-15 November 2023. The event will focus on Eastern Europe with a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders responsible for the build out of solar and storage projects in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Hungary.
