How Romania is Beating Western Europe on Solar & Storage

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On this episode of the Soliverse Podcast, Peter sits down with Gijsbert Huijink, co-founder of SOL Romania, to unpack why Romania might just be Europe’s most underrated solar and battery market.

Gijsbert shares hard-won lessons from developing 1 GW+ of projects—from grid hacks and battery-first strategies to why Romania is moving faster than Germany or the Netherlands on BESS deployment.

They discuss:

• Why Romania is a sleeper hit for hybrid projects

• The “cooperative-to-gigawatt” journey behind SOL Romania

• Grid access, flexibility, and why BESS is easier in Bucharest than Berlin

• The downsides of poorly run CAPEX subsidies

• How they permitted a 350 MWp hybrid plant in under 12 months

• What other countries can learn from Romania’s pragmatism

• Why their team will stop at 1 GW and go windsurfing

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Guest & Soliverse Links:

🌐 SOL Renewables Romania: https://www.solrenewables.ro

🔗 Gijsbert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gijsberthuijink/

🎧 Soliverse on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6C2HVmlEcsFXJqzxlfT9uA

🌐 Website: https://soliverse.energy

🔗 Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpongraczsaas/

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Thank you for listening to Soliverse | The Future of Solar, the podcast for people building the future of solar, storage, and renewable infrastructure.

Each episode features grounded, unfiltered conversations with the people financing, developing, operating, and scaling real projects across the solar and clean energy ecosystem.

Soliverse exists to cut through noise, hype, and disconnected narratives and replace them with clarity, realism, and execution-focused insight for professionals who want to make smarter decisions, faster.

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