Moldova renewable auction raises questions over ownership transparency

The Moldovan energy ministry's tender committee approved seven winning bids in the country's second renewable-energy auction on August 14. Four consortia shared the awards: Lumina Noastră, which took four of the seven projects; Navitas Energy; Summa FIBA Enerji; and a pairing of Leafwind Energy SRL and Oromaxmontaj SRL. Together they won support for 170 MW of new wind capacity, this time coupled with energy-storage systems.

The winning companies still have to be formalised in a government decision. As in the first auction, that public document identifies the companies receiving support, but not their ultimate beneficial owners. Auction participants are required to disclose them, but those names are not published as part of the auction results. And in at least one company from the first round, the owners changed after the guaranteed tariffs were awarded.

Competition was stronger than the capacity available. Sixteen bidders offered almost 424 MW of wind projects and 305 MWh of storage — roughly two and a half times the wind capacity on offer.

In this auction, Moldova has tied state support to an obligation to build energy storage: the winners must install storage systems alongside their new power plants. The Energy Community said in an official statement that Moldova was the first of its members to hold a joint auction for renewable generation and storage.

The auctions are being held in one of the most vulnerable energy systems in the region. In January 2025, Moldova lost its main source of electricity. The Cuciurgan power station in Transnistria, which had supplied 70-80% of the electricity used on the right bank of the Dniester, shut down after Russian gas deliveries stopped. Moldova turned increasingly to imports from Romania, but only 315 MW of cross-border capacity was guaranteed at the time, while a major domestic transmission line also passed through Transnistria.

The vulnerability of the system was again apparent on January 31, 2026, when a fault in the Ukrainian grid left a large part of Moldova without electricity for several hours. In March, the government declared a two-month state of emergency in the energy sector.

Yet Moldova is now carrying out one of the fastest energy market reforms in Europe. Installed renewable capacity increased from just over 70 MW in 2020 to more than 1 GW by 2026. The country has also been among the stronger performers in the Energy Community in implementing EU energy rules. A new 157-km high-voltage line between Vulcănești and Chișinău, designed to connect Moldova more directly with Romania while bypassing Transnistria, was completed in December 2025 and underwent its first tests in January. The energy minister has said commercial operation is expected by the end of 2026.

One consortium won 72% of the capacity

One of the second-round winners, Lumina Noastră, previously secured just over 72% of the capacity in the first round.

Moldova's first large-scale renewable auction allocated 165 MW: 60 MW of solar and 105 MW of wind. In the solar segment, a consortium using the name Lumina Noastră won 54.3 MW across five parks, while KKK Invest secured 5.7 MW.

In wind, a consortium under the same name — made up of Lumina Noastră SRL, AN Energy Green SRL and GS Blue Energy SRL — won 65 MW across two projects. Navitas Energy, a subsidiary of Premier Energy, received 12.5 MW, while Windnova, part of the international Qair group, was awarded 27.5 MW.

Taken together, the two Lumina Noastră consortia — overlapping groups of companies bidding under one name — secured 119.3 of the 165 MW, just over 72% of the capacity available in the first auction.

They received the right to build a solar or wind power plant and a 15-year contract with Energocom, under which the state-owned company undertakes to buy their electricity at a pre-set price. Solar bids were awarded at around €59 per MWh and wind at around €67 per MWh. The arrangements run for up to 15 years and include protection against depreciation of the Moldovan leu against the US dollar, reducing part of the currency risk for investors.

Some plants owned by companies in the winning Lumina Noastră consortium were already operating when the auction took place. At the time, consortium members had 18.3 MW of solar and 7.5 MW of wind capacity in operation, while two larger parks — Rădeni (50 MW) and Negureni (40 MW) — were under construction. In other words, the fixed tariff, guaranteed for 15 years, went not only to future projects but to plants that had already been built. The ministry's own statement acknowledges this, describing the consortium's 54.3 MW as "existing and new projects". 

Lumina Noastră representative Zinaida Plămădeală said in an emailed statement that the plants of some member companies were approximately one year old at the time of the auction — within the eligibility threshold — and said there was no ambiguity on that point.

State Secretary Carolina Novac said in a written response that the first auction had been held under the 2016 renewable-energy law, which at the time allowed bids from investors who already owned generating facilities, as well as those planning to build them. The plants concerned had been operating for less than a year before the deadline, and the contracts were shortened accordingly, from 15 years to the length of time they had already been in operation. Novac noted this had been set out in the tender documents from the start. After the first auction, the rules were amended and plants already in operation are no longer eligible for future tenders.

The consortium says the structure was chosen deliberately: "The founding companies share professional relationships and prior experience in joint projects; forming a consortium under a transparent contractual framework was the most appropriate structure for joint participation," Plămădeală said.

Navitas Energy, one of the other first-round winners, does not regard the concentration of projects in a single group as evidence that competition was restricted. Administrator Mihail Gidei said in response to a question from IntelliNews the result reflected competition conducted under the established rules and should not in itself be treated as evidence of barriers to market entry.

At the same time, Navitas said publication of the ultimate beneficial owners of all winners, together with stronger scrutiny of bidders' compliance histories, could improve transparency and confidence in the auction process, provided the requirements were proportionate and applied equally.

Changed ownership

Lumina Noastră SRL's largest shareholder is Eximiusfruct, with a 21.05% stake. It is owned by Viorel Revenco, an agribusinessman and founder of Chișinău's wholesale agricultural market. In the solar segment, the Lumina Noastră consortium is made up of Revenco Logistic SRL, Lumina Noastră SRL, Eximiusfruct SRL, Niko Fruit SRL, Solotrans-Agro SRL and GS Blue Electric SRL. Four of these six companies are directly linked to agribusiness, and at least three lead back to Viorel Revenco. Solotrans-Agro is 78% owned by Revenco.

GS Blue Energy — one of the three members of the winning wind consortium — was set up on October 4, 2024 through a reorganisation of GS Blue Electric, according to an investigation by Mold-Street. It was handed assets worth MDL25.8mn with its share capital MDL2. The energy ministry said GS Blue Energy would not build the plants itself, but was taking part as one of the investors. It added that the auction terms had been agreed with international consultants and reviewed by the Energy Community Secretariat.

But GS Blue Energy's ownership changed after the win. A state registry record from August 19, 2025 — less than two weeks after the government approved the auction results — still lists Gheorghe Stratan as the sole owner. By October 27, the registry shows five corporate co-owners: USBA SRL (40%), Eximiusfruct SRL (30%), and GS Powersystem, Airvolt and Vieco Service Energy (10% each). In other words, Viorel Revenco's Eximiusfruct had acquired a stake in a company founded by Stratan — and the ownership of one of the auction winners had changed before its plants entered operation.

Sergiu Tofilat, a financial and energy policy analyst at the WatchDog.MD community association and a former energy adviser to the Moldovan president, argues that vetting of this kind loses its purpose if ownership can change after the award: "If the tendering documents require bidders to pass the commission analysing foreign investments in strategic areas, then if the company passes the filter but later changes its ownership, what is the role of that filter? If you want to change the ownership — then pass that filter again. We want to make sure that no dirty money and no oligarchs from Russia can pose a threat to our security,” Tofilat said in an interview. 

Asked to name the ultimate beneficial owners of the consortium and its member companies, Plămădeală did not identify any individuals. The ownership structure, she said, was "fully declared and verifiable through public records," and she argued that conclusions should be based on verified documentation rather than registration dates or corporate structures considered in isolation.

The current public InfoBiz record shows a fragmented ownership structure in Lumina Noastră SRL: it lists 12 corporate shareholders, none with more than 25% of the company. Under Moldova's Law 308/2017, however, ownership of more than 25% is only one criterion for identifying a beneficial owner. The law also provides for indirect ownership through several companies controlled by the same natural person, as well as control exercised by other means. Only if no natural person can be identified after all possible means have been exhausted may the company's administrator be treated as the beneficial owner. Applying that test from public records alone is not possible. The registry names corporate shareholders, not the individuals behind them.

What the records can — and cannot — show 

The other winner was KKK Invest, which secured the right to build a 5.7 MW solar park. Minutes from March 3, 2025 show that the Council for the Review of Investments of Importance to State Security raised concerns about one of the beneficial owners of Energy Fabrik, which holds a 50% stake in KKK Invest. The council asked KKK Invest to provide, within ten working days, information confirming that the individual was not under criminal investigation for a serious or particularly serious offence. After reviewing information submitted by KKK Invest, including a note from the interior ministry, the council concluded on March 24 that the situation of one of Energy Fabrik's founders did not meet the criteria set out in Article 8 of the law governing investments of importance to state security. It conditionally approved the investment, requiring Victor Bunescu, founder of Energy Fabrik, to be removed from the corporate chain within 20 days.

In April 2025, having examined additional documents submitted by the company, the council raised no objections and approved KKK Invest's investment; compliance with the removal requirement was confirmed by the council's secretariat. In June 2025, the commission named KKK Invest among the auction winners, and in August the government endorsed the results.

At the screening end, as the GS Blue Energy case shows, eligibility checks fell on the bidding entity itself — a company established only months before the auction, in a reorganisation of GS Blue Electric. Its ownership changed after it was named among the winners. This suggests that eligibility checks focused primarily on the bidding entity itself, rather than on the individuals or wider corporate interests behind it.

Moldova has also struggled to enforce the rules it does have. Under a 2025 law aimed at speculative "ghost projects", energy sector regulator ANRE imposed non-use charges on nine companies whose idle permits were tying up more than 400 MW of grid capacity — but eight of the nine are contesting the decisions in court, and none of the money has been collected. Moldovan media have also reported, citing ANRE, that the rules do not take account of the record of related companies.

Asked who currently benefits from the KKK Invest contract, Novac named no one — only "the economic operators identified in the official Government Decision approving the auction results", a document that lists companies. Bidders disclose their beneficial owners to the tender commission, but there it stops: "The Ministry does not have the legal mandate to publish information beyond that required by Government Decision No. 690/2018."

Moldova has thus committed itself to buying electricity from private companies for 15 years — and in at least one of those companies, the owners changed after the guaranteed tariffs were awarded.

The next auction raises the stakes

The second auction also arrives as Moldova is beginning to confront another consequence of its rapid renewable expansion: whether the grid can absorb all the electricity being built. Tofilat argues that excessive generation is already forcing some producers off the grid during periods of surplus.

"We have too many renewables installed, and there is excessive generation during the day," Tofilat said. "Some of the producers are already being disconnected from the grid." Moldova's installed renewable capacity, he notes, is already sufficient to cover the country's consumption at peak hours — yet only 44% of it benefits from the support mechanism and is compensated when disconnected. The storage capacity included in the auction, he said, would still not be enough to absorb the excess daytime generation.

"But 56% of the installed capacity is on the free market, and they are not protected if you disconnect them. They do not receive compensation. And now they are struggling to repay their loans. We are speaking about almost 600 megawatts of capacity that face bankruptcy," he said. Adding another 170 MW of wind, in his view, risks inflating the problem: producers curtailed during daytime hours would have to be compensated for electricity not delivered, with those costs ultimately passed on to consumers through tariffs.

So far, the EU has helped fund Moldova's energy reforms and shape the rules behind them. In 2025, Moldova received more than €300m from Brussels. Payments under the Growth Plan are tied to reforms. Disclosure of the owners of companies receiving state support could be made one of the conditions. In June, the EU opened the first negotiating cluster on Moldova's accession. For Brussels, the transparency of energy auctions is no longer an internal Moldovan matter but a measure of the quality of reform in a candidate country.