The Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja claims that a solution has been found to connect the four thermal power plants (CETs) in the Capital directly to the Transgaz network, thus eliminating the costs with the distributor, which would be 17 lei/Megawatt-hour or 50 of millions of euro annually.

“ELCEN needs gas for the production of the thermal agent – hot water and heat. This gas gets delivered in the national transport system on the Transgaz highways and come very close to the four CETs. For this service, ELCEN pays Transgaz 4 lei/Megawatt-hour, after which to actually bring the gas to the four power stations there are still a few kilometers of pipe, which belong to the distributor. For these few kilometers of pipe or in the case of CET Vest – 400 meters, ELCEN pays 17 lei/MWh to the distributor,” Sebastian Burduja said, according to Agerpres.

“We found a solution together with the general director (of ELCEN) Claudiu Crețu, the ELCEN team and the team of specialists from the Ministry of Energy, with the support of Transgaz (…), to connect the four CETs directly to the Transgaz network. To realize the size of this problem, I can tell you that during all these years ELCEN has paid and also the citizens of Bucharest have paid out of their pockets somewhere around 50 million euro per year, on average, to the distributor. This is money that, through the investment we will make, we will save from each individual,” the Minister of Energy also declared.

Sebastian Burduja announced that the feasibility study for these works has already been contracted.

“I want to thank Mr. Crețu for moving very quickly, and (also) ELCEN and Transgaz, and they already have the feasibility study contracted to do these first works. They generally pass under the railways and transport fuel oil to the four CET -s. That’s not the case anymore, they don’t run on fuel oil any more. So the work can be done in a fairly quick time frame and that will be felt in a year, two, three, when all four are finished projects, in the pocket of every Bucharest resident,” said Minister Burduja.