E.ON Energie Romania announced for a record investment of over 450 million lei, for 2017. The company aims to install nearly 600,000 thousand smart meters by 2020, with about 39 million euros resered for this purpose, starting in 2014, according to a release released by energynomics.ro.

“Improving network performance continues to be our priority. For 2017, we budgeted investments of over 450 million lei, the highest since entering the Romanian market,” said Frank Hajdinjak, CEO of E.ON Romania.

According to the annual report, the investments made by E.ON companies in Romania amounted to about 438 million lei (97 million euros) last year, being mainly destined to finance the rehabilitation and modernization works of natural gas and electricity distribution networks.

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According to E.ON, 188 million lei (42 million euros) were invested in 2016, the distribution system being rehabilitated and upgraded to a length of approximately 370 km and extended to a length of approximately 64 kilometers. “For the year 2017 a similar amount was foreseen, the main targets being the modernization of about 480 km of pipelines and connections (more than the road distance between Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca) and the extension of the distribution system by about 60 km”, it is shown in the press release.

“The company has installed approximately 243,000 thousand smart meters, 66,000 of these units in 2016. This year, the goal is to install about 20,000 smart meters, and in the interval 2018-2020 there will be installed, according to current plans, another 350,000 units”, the press release said.

Since entering the Romanian market, E.ON has invested 5.6 billion lei (1.4 billion euros) and has paid 8.3 billion lei (1.8 billion euros) to the state budget, in taxes and fees.