TY - JOUR T1 - The Romanian State Aid Policy for Promoting Electricity Produced in High Efficiency Cogeneration A1 - Mușatescu, Virgil A1 - Podașcă, Cristian A1 - Opriș, Ioana PY - 2017 N2 - Romania has accumulated valuable experience in supporting high efficiency cogeneration, using a scheme also known as the ‘cogeneration bonus’. The bonus is an operating State aid that helps the producers to remain competitive on the electricity market and stimulates both new investment and rehabilitation of old plants. This article focuses on the results of the bonus scheme after the first five years of application: an increasing number of producers benefiting of this aid, higher global (electricity and heat) efficiency of the cogeneration plants, significant primary energy savings and CO2 emissions avoided. The scheme also experienced some problems (to which the authors suggest certain solutions) related to the legal, institutional/administrative, investment, technical, economic/financial and social frameworks. Last but not least, the article presents the introduction of a new State aid scheme to support high efficiency cogeneration, which will be in line with the European guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy up to 2020 and will probably be in place starting 2017. Keywords: Energy Efficiency; Cogeneration Bonus; EEAG; Romania. JF - European State Aid Law Quarterly JA - European State Aid Law Quarterly VL - 16 IS - 2 UR - https://doi.org/10.21552/estal/2017/2/10 M3 - doi:10.21552/estal/2017/2/10 ER -