The statistics of recent years show that at the level of Romania, heatwave episodes, floods, periods of drought, regional energy blackouts are more frequent and of increasing intensity with social and energy implications that will be increasingly disastrous. The Grean Deal actions are actions that will have long-term implications, but until then, Romania must urgently start environmental, social and energy actions to reduce the immediate effects of these phenomena, claims Dumitru Chisăliță, president of the Intelligent Energy Association.

Concretely, today Romania’s greatest urgency is not the reduction of carbon emissions (a direction that must be achieved in the medium and long term), but urgent plans for the hydrotechnical development of areas in such a way as to prevent floods and landslides during rainy periods abundant (increasingly frequent and with increasingly high amounts of water), these facilities also allow the accumulation of water in rainy periods to be used in dry periods (increasingly frequent, with increasingly high temperatures and with increasingly long periods of time) and of course to use water energy for the production of clean electricity, but also to ensure the sufficient amount of water for the population or agricultural works.

The expositions of pseudo-ecologists, such as that hydrotechnical facilities affect the environment, must be confronted with the lack of these facilities and the way in which floods in Europe and Romania, landslides, drought kill people, animals and birds. The rational must beat the dreamers.

The Intelligent Energy Association proposes the urgent start of the Plan for the realization of the New Model of the Energy System, to respond to climate changes and to prevent new climate changes, so that Romania achieves social, energy and environmental balance, both for today’s requirements (preventing the effects floods and droughts, ensuring secure, clean and cheap energy) as well as for the future (reducing CO2 emissions and using secure clean energy).

The energy situation in Romania today is mostly due to the faulty policies in Romania for the last 20 years, to the lack of strategy in the energy field:

– we have an energy market declared free, but which is actually totally regulated;

– we have suppliers who naturally look for new consumers, but in fact they drive away the existing ones;

– we have capped prices declared for social purpose, but in fact they are higher than they should be normally.

The recent social and economic packages had the following effects:

– statistically, according to Eurostat data, they placed Romania in the top of gas and electricity price increases;

– internationally renowned energy companies, interested in long-term resilient technical development, left Romania, leaving with specific professionalism and allowed the entry into Romania of some financially speculative companies, uninterested in the energy and social future of Romania.

– thousands of companies have reduced their activity, due to considerations of prices paid for energy, with disastrous consequences for the Romanian economy,

– energy poverty has increased significantly in recent years.

Before the implementation of the energy strategies, energy efficiency, promotion of SMRs, hydrogen, etc., Romania is obliged to define the guidelines that the different sectorial strategies will subsequently implement. In the absence of these guiding lines, the strategies, even seriously realized, are doomed to failure.

The only possibility for Romania to ensure its social, energy and environmental balance, but above all to avoid critical situations, is to adopt and implement the Plan for the realization of the New Model of the Energy System, to respond to climate change and to prevent new climate changes. Here, Romania must define:

The Romanian economic model in the European Union, in the perspective of the years 2040-2050, is one of the basic elements from which one must start and which defines the demand, the profile and the amplitude of the energy requirement, but also determines the degree of economic support that ensures the viability of the Romanian economy , in accordance with the technological level to which it tends.

The social model, which is desired to be built in Romania and which determines the territorial systematization and development of roads and means of transport, the sub-models of urbanization, the level of comfort and living to which Romania tends and which shapes the demand, the profile and the amplitude of the necessary of energy in the economy.

The preparation of human resources for the design and implementation of the great transformations to which Romania is to undergo in the coming years. I think it is the third biggest problem, the first being the lack of vision of the leaders and the second being the lack of social dialogue and social acceptability of the transformations that Romania must undergo.

Social acceptability, a non-existent element in today’s Romania, but without which all these radical transformations of Romania are not possible. People must be prepared to leave the current state of induced comfort that we are fine the way we are and that we are such a rich country that we don’t need anything. Romanian oil is running out, gazelle, although there are still deposits, they are depleting, in the last 10 years no important energy project has existed, and all this cannot continue indefinitely.

Sectoral interconnectivity. Another strategic approach that should concern Romania is the preparation for climate change. These are obvious and are characterized by more and more frequent and longer periods in which there are dry periods, but also large amounts of precipitation falling in a short period of time. The hydrotechnical development of the areas in such a way as to prevent floods and landslides, but also to accumulate water for dry periods and of course to use water energy for the production of electricity, sufficient also for Agricultural works.

The “efficiently resilient” consumption mix

A term that does not yet exist in the current language, represents a trend that must develop in the sense of maximizing energy efficiency at the level of the consumer, simultaneously with the development of sources of self-production of energy from the resources available and within reach of the consumer, the use of storage systems energy and the interchangeability of energy forms according to availability, timeliness and cost.

The security energy mix

The mistake of deadlines for the elimination of coal until 2030, contributed to trapping Romania in the grip of energy crises. The identification of energy demand, profile and amplitude, as well as the level of economic support can determine the security energy mix, storage solutions – fuel interchangeability, the necessary techniques and technologies, the optimization of networks for the various forms of energy, under the conditions of a consumption mix efficient resilient.

 The definition of the New Model of the Romanian Energy System must be based on Romania’s available resources, on the efficiency of production, transport and consumption processes, and on the technological rethinking of energy production processes (production mix) and the use of new technologies for heating, water hot, air conditioned, etc.