“On the electricity market, now there is a certain effervescence related to all these potential new investments, especially in renewable energy. The question that is on everyone’s mind is: will they all be done, or which ones will be done, which ones will receive funding, which ones will be ready first? We see that sometimes the consumption is 5,000 – 6,000 megawatts, not to mention 4,000 somewhere around March-April. We are talking about tens of thousands of megawatts. Obviously, there are questions to which only time will give the answer, but the CETs in Bucharest must be done. Why? Any of the power plants in Romania, if it has a problem and stops, can be replaced from elsewhere.

Romania’s interconnection capacity has increased, but the thermal energy needed to heat the city of Bucharest, the capital of Romania, cannot be replaced. Bucharest is ‘too big to fail’. The gas network can’t support it, the electricity distribution network can’t support it either. So, this is how this system that has reached its limits in the last two-three years, actually the last three-four winters, especially 2020-2021, needs to be modernized. Global warming helped us. If there were winters in Bucharest like 10-15 years ago, with -20 degrees or -15 degrees for a few weeks, the situation would have been cruel. Mild winters have helped us, but they will not help us forever,” Claudiu Cretu, General Manager, Elcen said during Green Energy Conference organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

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