The price of energy could triple in the coming years, both for domestic and industrial consumers, if new electricity generation capacities are not built in Romania, said Marian Nastase, chairman of Alro’s Board of Directors, during an interview given to Agerpres.

In order for new power plants to be built, long-term contracts are needed for the sale of energy, impossible according to the current legislation, without which no bank will finance such projects, Năstase points out.

“This is a big problem – the impossibility of concluding long-term contracts and it is not known what ANRE (National Energy Regulatory Authority n.r.) wants to do. There is no stopping on behalf of the European Commission and I do not understand what is expected, it is not clear to me. It is natural to have a long-term contract for predictability.

“In addition, any financier requires a long-term energy contract. We don’t have them? No investments will be completed…

“Today’s power plants will become older and will be closed. For example, out of about 3,700 MW of coal, 2,500 MW have already been decided to be closed. It seems to me correct the Government’s plan to put gas plants in place. Because if we do not put them in place quickly, we will have such a large imbalance in the national energy sector that we will see prices three times higher than they are today. We will come to have some prices, maybe not even like in Texas, but certainly unsustainable even for home consumers, not to mention the industry. Because we do not have enough interconnections to balance from imports, as imports are limited. The situation is quite dramatic,” said Năstase.