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Romania needs production capacities from clean sources to replace especially coal power plants in as short a time horizon as possible, being thus the only way by which the energy deficit can be covered and prices would drop, said, on Thursday, at the 7th edition of the Energy Strategy Summit 2021, Zoltan Nagy-Bege, the deputy chair of the National Authority for Energy Regulation (ANRE).
"From an investment point of view, both the electrical energy production, as well as natural gas extraction are in a favorable moment, due to the evolution of prices. On wholesale markets there are prices that are very, very high, unseen for some time, this potentially being an extra stimulus for those who want to invest in the domain. On the natural gas side, we cannot overlook the new investments proposed both at the government level, as well as at the level of natural gas distributors or transporters to expand natural gas networks, in order to increase the degree of accessibility to gas infrastructure for household and industrial consumers. We need natural gas, irrespective of whether the final investment decision in the great depth extraction in the Black Sea is made or not. In Romania, natural gas consumption, both at the household level, as well as the industrial level, as well as in the electrical energy production domain, will be significant for at least the next ten years," said Nagy-Bege.
He said that the lack of electrical energy production capacity has been felt in Romania "for two-three years", and large part of the existing capacities are "less and less profitable" and mentioned that the regulations issued, at the national level, in the past two years, took into account Regulation 943 of 2019 regarding the internal electrical energy market, both on the balancing market, as well as in what regards wholesale trading regulations.
"We managed to make important steps to conform with the energy policy of the European Union. We transposed directives, we applied regulations and I will give you one example - Regulation 943 of 2019 regarding the internal electrical energy market, which is applied in most of Romania starting with January 1, 2020 .I can say that the regulations issued by the ANRE in the past two years largely took into account this regulation, regardless if we are referring to the amendments made in the balancing market or regulations for wholesale trading of electrical energy. In the natural gas domain, thanks largely to the efforts also submitted by Transgaz, in the recent period the interconnection capacity of Romania improved significantly both in the south, with our Bulgarian neighbors, as well as to the West, with Hungary. Efforts are still being made to solve the issue of interconnection with Ukraine," Zoltan Nagy-Bege emphasized.
