Romania’s technical universities could take over the place left vacant by the disappearance of the energy research institutes, without, however, becoming SRLs that carry out feasibility studies, said Andrei Ceclan, president of SAMER – the Society of Energy Auditors and Managers in Romania.
“Romania no longer has any energy research institutes. They were the ones who gave the direction and could say what steps should be taken. You can see this lack [also] in the so-called energy strategy, which is a collection of content that doesn’t really link up. We also see this in the PNIESC, which has already been rejected three times. We are losing confidence in these documents produced by external consultants. It would be worth seeing who we replace the research institutes with and my first choice would be the technical universities that can replace this research role in giving and underpinning the direction we need to go in,” Ceclan said at the conference “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency – Iasi 2024”, organised by Energynomics.
He added that universities have the role of disseminating knowledge in the socio-economic environment, but they should not become SRLs that do feasibility studies. This happens because there are no alternatives. The good news is that there are multiple sources of funding for scientific research for universities, and at the Technical University of Cluj there are 20 research projects in the field of energy transition.
“Universities are a very valuable resource that should also be taken into account by the authorities, but they should not replace the economic environment in commercial contracts,” he said.
Smart decarbonization
On the other hand, the decarbonisation of the economy must be done in an intelligent way and without sacrificing energy security, and the first targets that should be targeted in this process should be buildings, which are responsible for about 50% of a city’s heat consumption. Moreover, public district heating systems are in massive need of investment. At national level, the need for funding for all public heating systems in Romania totals 10 billion euros, while all current funding does not exceed 1 billion euros.
“Another ghost haunts Europe, that of decarbonisation. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get there, but we have to do it intelligently and without sacrificing our energy security. This means that to achieve decarbonisation in cities, we must first and foremost gradually supply safe, clean and green energy, as a priority, to homes, the main energy consumer in cities. And this must be done using public district heating systems. We cannot sacrifice our energy security by thinking that renewables will solve everything. We solve a good part, but not everything,” he said.
This conference “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency – Iasi 2024” was organised by Energynomics with the support of the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania – CCIpR, and of our partners: Datacor, Exim Banca Românească, Polytrade Global, Solar Turbines, UniCredit Bank, WALDEVAR .