The emergency ordinance for the establishment of the National Energy Efficiency Investment Fund is on its way to approval inside the Ministry of Energy, Cristian Ilie, the general director of the Directorate for Energy Efficiency within the Ministry of Energy, said at EnergynomicsTalks. The fund will be fed by selling part of the CO2 emission allowances allocated to Romania through the EU ETS.

The operationalization of the National Energy Efficiency Investment Fund is one of the reforms undertaken by Romania through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan – NRRP. The idea of “reducing the energy intensity of the economy by developing a sustainable mechanism to stimulate energy efficiency in industry and increase resilience” appears as early as 2012 in the first European Directive on energy efficiency. Such a fund has been called for again in 2018 and is already a desideratum in national legislation and strategies. The fund “will help to finance energy efficiency programmes, for promotion, to finance or co-finance energy audits, for example at SME level, to promote energy efficiency services and cogeneration”, said Cristian Ilie.

The funds will be allocated on the basis of calls for projects, for measures and objectives that the Directorate for Energy Efficiency will establish together with representatives of the beneficiaries. “We are organizing consultations [with energy auditors, energy managers, company consultants, energy project consultants], just to get the needs out of the market and implement them,” said Cristian Ilie.