RED Nord has separated its activities into three main lines of business in order to more easily integrate new renewable energy generation capacity into the grid. “We have divided the distribution activity into three areas, namely the technical part – networks, energy accounting and digitisation of the company and maintaining the relationship with consumers,” said Viorel Corbu, technical director at RED Nord, during the “Regional Approach Chișinău” conference organized by Energynomics.

The company rebuilds 500 kilometres of low- and medium-voltage network every year and has so far managed to upgrade half of the low-voltage lines. “With this reconstruction we want to increase the capacity of the networks to connect renewables and to connect more consumers,” Corbu added.

The company employs 1,500 people and distributes energy to 500,000 household and non-household customers in 14 districts in the north of the country. The company is also running a pilot project to install 15,000 smart meters.

On the other hand, the appearance in the system of more and more prosumers who have installed photovoltaic panels on their roofs is disrupting the operation of the networks and has caused a 15% drop in the volume of electricity distributed by RED Nord.

“We have a network development plan to increase consumption and generation capacity, but the net metering mechanism has led us to reduce distribution by 15% because prosumers are self-consuming. The legislation is not in the distributor’s interest to invest in storage,” Corbu said.

The company has connected 60 MW of renewable capacity to its distribution grid, of which 9 MW belongs to domestic consumers. Of the total, 12.4 MW are installed in photovoltaic panels and 36.9 MW are installed in wind power plants.

The conference “Regional Approach Chișinău” was organized by Energynomics with the support of our partners Huawei, Siemens Energy, Transgaz.