Early Entry: How to Buy a Romanian Project Before It Becomes Expensive

Every investor I meet wants the same thing: an RTB (Ready-to-Build) project, fully permitted, ready for construction tomorrow. I understand why. It is the safest asset on the market. But safety has a price, and in Romania today the gap between what a project costs at RTB and what it costs a year or two earlier can be very large. That gap is where early entry, or co-development, comes in.

The idea is simple. Instead of waiting for a developer to finish every permit and then buying the result at full price, the investor joins the project while it is still being built on paper. Typically this happens around the grid stage, when capacity has been allocated or the ATR (Aviz Tehnic de Racordare, the technical grid connection permit) is about to be issued, and before the zoning plan, the building permit and the connection contract are in place. The investor finances the remaining development, and in exchange enters at a much lower value than the market will pay at RTB.

Of course, a lower price means more risk. A permit can be delayed, a zoning plan can take longer than expected, a grid condition can change the business case. Pretending these risks do not exist would be dishonest. What matters is how the deal is structured around them.

In my view, the golden rule of early entry is to pay for milestones, not for promises. Money should not go into a project in one block on day one. It should be released in stages, each one linked to a concrete document: the ATR issued, the PUZ (Planul Urbanistic Zonal, the zonal urban plan) approved, the building permit obtained, the connection contract signed. If a milestone is not reached, the next payment simply does not happen. The investor's exposure at any moment is limited to what the project has actually earned.

The developer's role matters just as much. In a good co-development structure, the developer keeps a stake in the project until the end. That is not a detail; it is the investor's best protection, because a developer who still owns part of the asset has every reason to push it to RTB properly and not just quickly. A developer who wants all the money upfront and no skin in the game is telling you something important.

There are a few questions I would always ask before entering. Which permits are already issued, and which are only applied for? What are the realistic timelines for the rest, based on the local authority and the grid operator in that area, not on optimism? What happens to the investor's money if a milestone fails, and what rights does the investor have to step in or exit? And finally, who is checking the documents along the way on the investor's side?

That last question is where BRES ENERGY comes in. The co-development projects we present on our platform are structured exactly this way: clear milestones, staged contributions, a developer who stays in, and our team following each step. We are also investors ourselves, so we look at these deals with the same eyes as the people we bring to the table.

Early entry is not for everyone. If you need certainty today, buy RTB and accept the price. But if you have a horizon of one or two years and the discipline to pay only for what is delivered, entering early is one of the smartest ways to build a renewable portfolio in Romania at a fair cost.