Romania has a huge offshore wind potential, of over 70,000 MW, and could reach the UK level in this sector in five years, said on Tuesday Niculae Havrileţ, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment.

“There is a huge opportunity for Romania in the offshore wind sector. There is a potential of 22 GW in fixed base turbines, on the seabed, respectively 50,000 MW in floating wind farms. These could make Romania become a net energy exporter in a short time, even starting with 2025”, Havrileţ specified, during the Energy Strategy Summit.

According to him, the costs of these technologies have dropped a lot, and Romania could catch up with the United Kingdom in just five years.

“There is a World Bank study that shows that Romania has a huge opportunity. A comparison is made with Great Britain, and the study shows that the success of Great Britain in that sector, for 20 years, can be achieved now, in Romania. With the current technology, much improved and with a low cost, we could achieve a similar development in five years,” the official added.

He added, during the event organized by energynomics.ro, that Transelectrica has been concentrating its investments lately in order to increase the capacity to take over the energy production from the south-east of the country.

Romania has assumed the achievement of a target of 30.7% regarding the share of renewable energy in 2030, compared to the level of 24% reached in 2017, according to Agerpres.