Due diligence checklist for a Romanian solar or BESS project: what to request and what each document should establish

Several fronts at once

A project’s documents fall into workstreams that advance in parallel: the land, the urbanism certificate and the building permit, the environment, the grid connection and, above the threshold, ANRE. Each has its own documents and deadlines, and one can be far ahead of another. The 2025 memo for a solar park in Fântânele, Arad county, was written at the building permit stage, and it states that a connection contract with Transelectrica had already been concluded on the basis of an ATR (page 12). The 2025 memo for a battery in Gătaia, Timiș county, lists the ATR among the approvals still to be obtained (page 7).

“Ready to build” is a transaction term, not a single statutory status. The transaction documents should define it, usually through a list of permits, rights and other documents that must be in force or satisfied by a given date. The checklist below is one way to test that definition against the project file.

What to request

The documents below are the ones a project file usually holds before construction, each with what it should establish. The approvals a given project needs are the ones its urbanism certificate lists.

• Land-book extracts for information (extrase de carte funciară pentru informare), recent, for every plot: who owns it, and which rights and charges are registered on it, such as the developer’s superficie.
• The contracts behind the developer’s rights to the land (superficie, lease, concession or sale): which plots, until when, and whether the term can be extended.
• The cadastral plans, and the rights along the cable route when the connection works leave the site.
• For agricultural land outside the built-up area (extravilan): the approval to take the land out of agricultural use, temporarily or permanently, and its term.
• The urbanism certificate (certificat de urbanism): the land’s regime, the approvals it lists, and its own term.
• Each approval the certificate lists: its number, its date, its term, its conditions, and whether it is favourable.
• Where the certificate requires one: the zonal urban plan (PUZ) and the local council decision approving it.
• The act that closed the environmental procedure: the environmental authority’s point of view, such as a screening decision, or, where the procedure went further, the environmental agreement or the Natura 2000 approval.
• The building permit (autorizație de construire), any extension of it, and the permit for the connection works if they have their own: which works, on which plots, until when.
• The solution study and its approval, and the ATR with any update of it: the power approved at each stage, the connection point, the works, the tariff, the guarantee and the deadlines.
• The proof that the connection guarantee was constituted, where one was required, and that the connection tariff was paid.
• The connection contract and its addenda, and the contract for designing and building the connection installation.
• The result of the connection-capacity allocation, if the project took part in one.
• Where the power delivered to the grid may exceed 1 MW: the establishment authorisation (autorizație de înființare), or its application and the deadline for obtaining it.
• If the plant is already built: the reception records, the connection certificate (certificat de racordare) and the licence.

Land: who holds the right, on which plots, until when

A land-book extract for information shows who owns a plot and which rights and charges are registered on it, such as a superficie in favour of the developer. Ask for a recent one for every plot, with the contracts behind each right. The extract matters beyond the land review. Under the pre-25 August 2026 regime relevant to the certificates discussed below, the building-permit file included proof of title over the land and, where applicable, an up-to-date land-book extract (Legea 50/1991 art. 7 (1) b)). ANRE grants an establishment authorisation only for a capacity sited on land the applicant owns or holds under another legal title, or on state or local-authority property (Legea 123/2012 art. 10 (3)).

The term of the right matters as much as the right. The 2022 memo for a zonal plan for a solar park in Fântânele describes the developer’s superficie this way:

Unless it was extended, that right ran until March 2025. The same developer’s 2025 memo, for a park in the same commune, states that a superficie was constituted but gives no term (page 13), and the two memos do not show whether they concern the same plots. The 2025 memo for the Medgidia battery, in Constanța county, cites four extracts that each show a superficie registered for the developer, also with no term (pages 12 and 13). In both cases the question is the same: what does a current extract show, and until when?

When the connection works run outside the project’s plots, ask what rights the developer holds along the cable route. The Fântânele 2025 memo leaves the connection works to a separate procedure (“printr-o procedură separată”, page 12), so ask for their documents too.

Building on agricultural land outside the built-up area also needs the approval to take the land out of agricultural use, temporarily or permanently. Ask for it and for its term. In the Medgidia memo, the developer’s table lists a technical approval from ANIF for the temporary removal, valid for 24 months, to 13.05.2027 (page 42).

The urbanism certificate and the approvals it lists

Under Legea 50/1991, which governed the certificates discussed here, an urbanism certificate was an information document. It made known the legal, economic and technical regime of the land and listed the approvals (avize și acorduri) needed for the building permit. It did not, by itself, give the right to build (art. 6 (1) a) and c), and (5)).

Legea 169/2026, the Code of spatial planning, urbanism and construction, replaced Legea 50/1991 on 25 August 2026. A certificate issued before that date remains valid, and article 582 (4) provides that the building permit may be issued on the basis of the approvals requested through that certificate. The certificates behind the memos cited here were issued on 31.12.2024 (Fântânele 2025 memo, page 10), 23.01.2025 (Gătaia memo, page 19) and 21.03.2025 (Medgidia memo, page 42). When reviewing what those certificates required, the starting point is therefore the legal regime under which they were issued.

The certificate’s list is the list to check, line by line: each approval it names, with its number, date, term and conditions. The Medgidia memo reproduces the developer’s own table of the approvals obtained for that project:

A table like this is a useful map of what to ask for, but it is not the approvals themselves. The sentence under it is the developer’s own statement:

Two lines of the table are easy to misread. The approval from the electricity networks (“Aviz Retele electrice”) is listed as favourable, without saying what kind of approval it is. A location approval (aviz de amplasament), which certificates often list, gives the network operator’s view on whether the project can coexist with its existing lines; it is not an ATR (ANRE Order 59/2013, Annex 1). The table also records an approval from Transelectrica as not needed (“Nu este necesar”). In a certificate’s list of approvals, such a line usually concerns whether the site affects Transelectrica’s installations, and it says nothing about the connection. The ATR is issued by the operator whose grid the project joins (article 25 (1) of the same order), so the ATR shows which grid that is, and at what voltage. Ask for it.

Where the certificate requires a zonal urban plan (plan urbanistic zonal, PUZ), ask for the plan and for the local council decision approving it.

Environment: the act that closed the procedure

A project covered by Legea 292/2018 may not be carried out without the screening decision or the environmental agreement (art. 23 (1)). The act to ask for is the one that closed the procedure. For a certificate issued before 25 August 2026, Legea 50/1991 names the outcomes: the environmental authority’s point of view after the initial evaluation or the screening stage, such as a screening decision (decizia etapei de încadrare) that no impact assessment is needed, or, where the procedure went further, its administrative act, the environmental agreement (acord de mediu) or the Natura 2000 approval (art. 6 (1¹)).

In the Medgidia memo, the developer’s table lists decision no. 54 of 12.05.2025 of APM Constanța, which it names both as the screening decision and as the decision of the initial evaluation stage, “valabil pe perioada CU+AC” (valid for the life of the certificate and the building permit) in its own words. Under Legea 50/1991, a document issued after the initial evaluation stage is a point of view (art. 6 (1¹)). The memo itself was written to obtain the environmental agreement (page 1), which suggests the procedure went on after decision 54. Ask which stage decision 54 closed, and for the act that ended the procedure.

A presentation memo (memoriu de prezentare) describes the project in the developer’s words, for the environmental authority. Its figures are the developer’s statements, not approvals, so compare the project it describes with the project the permit authorises and the ATR approves.

The building permit

Under Legea 50/1991, which governed the certificates discussed here, the building-permit file included the urbanism certificate, proof of title over the land, the technical documentation, and the approvals listed in the certificate together with the environmental authority’s point of view and, where required, its administrative act (art. 7 (1) a) to d)). Check what the permit actually authorises, on which plots and for what period. The connection works may sit outside it, as in the Fântânele 2025 memo.

Under that regime, the permit could be extended once, free of charge, for at most 24 months, on a request filed at least 45 working days before expiry (art. 7 (7)), and the extension was written on the original permit without new documentation (art. 7 (7¹)). If the authorised works had to change while the permit was valid, the holder had to request a new permit (art. 7 (15)). For an extension or other step taken after 25 August 2026, check the transitional rules and the Code now in force.

The permit also has a deadline set by the grid rules, described in the next section.

The grid connection

The grid documents run from the connection request to the connection contract: the solution study and its approval, the ATR and any update of it, the proof that the connection guarantee was constituted where one was required, the connection contract and its addenda, and the contract for designing and building the connection installation. If the project went through a connection-capacity allocation, ask for its result too. How to read the ATR itself is the subject of a separate note.

How to read a Romanian ATR, point by point →

Where the regulation requires a connection guarantee, its value and form are written in both the ATR and the connection contract (ANRE Order 59/2013, art. 31 (4)). The two should match, and so should the proof that the guarantee was constituted.

Two other documents keep the ATR alive. Under the regulation in the form in force since 25 May 2026, the holder of a production site, which for these rules includes a standalone storage installation, must obtain the building permit and, where the approved export is above 1 MW, the establishment authorisation for the generating capacity and any storage installation at the site. Each is due by the date the contract for building the connection installation is concluded, and no later than 12 months after the connection contract and 18 months after the ATR was issued. The same article sets an exception for some contracts. It allows the building-permit term to be extended once, by up to 12 months, with the operator’s written consent, an additional guarantee of 5% of the connection tariff excluding VAT and documents showing that the delay was beyond the user’s control, and it allows the authorisation term to be extended in the cases it lists. If either document is not obtained in time, the ATR ceases and the connection contract ends by law (art. 2 (1¹) and art. 36 (5) to (7)). For an ATR or a contract that predates 25 May 2026, check which version of these rules applies.

For a battery, the ATR should state the power that may be drawn from the grid, to charge it, as well as the power that may be exported; check both. MWh measures the energy a battery can store, not its power: the Gătaia memo gives 20 MW of power and 40 MWh of storage (page 4), two different quantities.

What kW, kWp, MW and MWh measure in a Romanian project file →

ANRE: the establishment authorisation and the licence

A new production capacity, or a new storage installation, needs an establishment authorisation from ANRE when the maximum power it delivers to the grid exceeds 1 MW. At 1 MW or less no authorisation is needed, but ANRE must be notified of the project and kept informed of its progress (Legea 123/2012 art. 10 (1)). The threshold is set on power delivered to the grid: not on installed power, and not on MWh.

ANRE Order 16/2026, published on 25 May 2026, requires an applicant to constitute, when it files the application, a financial guarantee of EUR 30 per kW of installed power as stated in the ATR, for each electricity-generation technology, valid until the record of reception at the completion of the plant’s construction works (article 19¹ (1) of the authorisation regulation). Article 19¹ does not expressly address a standalone storage installation, so this text alone does not establish whether the guarantee applies to one. The guarantee rules apply to applications for the grant, modification or extension of establishment authorisations filed after the order took effect, subject to the two exceptions in article II (1); an authorisation issued earlier can be extended on an application filed after that date only if the guarantee is constituted (articles II (1) and III (1)).

Operating the plant commercially needs a licence from ANRE, either for production, which also covers storage added to it, or for a storage installation that is not added to a production capacity; the same article exempts some small capacities (Legea 123/2012 art. 10 (2) a) and i), and (5)).

If the plant is already built

For a plant that is already built, the record of reception at the completion of the construction works, the commissioning record and the final reception record are three different documents, and one does not stand in for another. Ask for each, with the connection certificate and the licence.

The checks that compare documents

Many problems in a project file sit between two documents rather than inside one. These checks compare them:

• Holder: is the company named on the certificate, the environmental decision, the permit, the ATR, the connection contract and the authorisation the company being bought? Where one names another company, on what basis did it pass to the target?
• Plots: do the plots in the land-book extracts match those in the certificate, the environmental decision and the permit? Are the cable route and the substation covered by a right?
• Power: the ATR approves an export power, the connection contract repeats or updates it, the authorisation states the capacity it authorises, and a memo describes the project in the developer’s words. They can differ for good reasons, and each difference should have one. The Fântânele 2025 memo states that the park “s-a dimensionat pentru o putere electrică instalată de 38,35 MWp” (page 11), which its 59 454 panels of 645 Wp make, and then “Se propune o putere instalată de cca. 39,35 MW” (page 12). Ask which figure the design and the ATR carry.
• Dates: put every term in one table (the certificate, each approval, the permit and its extension, the ATR and its deadlines, the authorisation) and check that each document is still valid on the date the next one depends on it.
• Statements and documents: a memo, a summary table or a teaser says what the developer states. Check each statement against the document it refers to.
• More than one document of a kind: when the file holds two ATRs, permits or memos for the same project, ask how they relate, whether as an update, a replacement or a different project.

How ELARID reads a project file

ELARID reads each document in a project file and records every figure with its unit, its page and the words it was read from. It keeps the power an ATR approves apart from the power other documents state, and does not convert one into another. When two documents disagree, both values stay side by side until a person chooses. When a document the checks depend on is not in the file, such as the building permit or the connection contract, ELARID lists it among the documents to ask for, with the number of checks that wait on it.

See how ELARID shows a project →