Risk Dimensions In The Romanian Solar Energy Landscape

The dangers hampering the performance of solar energy companies, and practical techniques to mitigate the risks in the solar energy business are poorly explored in the renewable energies literature. Since we found a limited amount of research on risk management in solar energy companies in Eastern European countries we chose to endeavour to cover this gap. As a result, based on semi-structured interviews with experts in Romanian solar energy firms, in this paper we seek to address the challenge of building a classification framework of internal and external risks of a solar energy company, highlighting the ways to mitigate risks in this business. Our exploratory work highlights that the solar energy projects are impeded by six key risks: technological risks, access to finance risk, operational risk (internal risks) and political risk, regulatory risk and weather related risks (external risks). The research results indicate several key factors as main risk mitigators: improvement of energy efficiency, organizational learning and investment in knowledge, relying on proven technologies, defining an inhouse risk management function, collaboration strategies among stakeholders in the industry, permanent monitoring and maintenance, insurance. By undertaking this study we aim to contribute to the scarce literature written on the background of Romanian business companies acting in the solar energy industry and to raise awareness on the fact that improved judgment and information of current and future risks is a major challenge.