The district heating system must reach a price per Gcal as low as possible, and if we reach a price that no longer requires subsidies, the system would become 100% sustainable and will no longer depend on political influence, said the general director of ELCEN, Claudiu Crețu.
“As long as we depend on that subsidy, through which the City Hall pays part of the price, whether it receives it from the Government or not, whether the mayor so-and-so, with the prime minister so-and-so and with the minister so-and-so, regardless of (political) colors, because this is something that has been going on for 20 years, the system has a vulnerability. For the Bucharest energy system to be sustainable, we must reach that price that must be borne without subsidy or with a very small subsidy…like in Oradea, where the system is sustainable, without depending on any subsidy from the City Hall. We must get there, first having these projects, taking over successful models from the states around us where the systems work better, taking over smart technologies from companies that have implemented these systems, in similar systems, and managing to implement them. What is important is that there are also possibilities or the chance of financing. At this moment there are great chances – there is this Modernization Fund, a GEO regarding green energy and efficiency is to be approved, M100, SACETs qualify… As long as there is the possibility of financing, we must do everything to modernize this system for the best possible price and to get this system out of the area of political influence”, said Claudiu Crețu, within the works of the SET Heat project.
Romania’s district heating system is in full transition, and an important initiative is the Set Heat project, part of the European Union’s LIFE programme for Environment and Climate Action, which encompasses the green transition of the district heating sector in four countries: Romania, Croatia, Lithuania and Poland.
In Romania, the programme took shape after, in 2022, the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland, and the Municipal Thermal Power Company agreed to collaborate in the field of research and development of technical and economic solutions through which CMTEB would adhere to the new pollution standards imposed by the EU Green Deal. The initiators of the programme, gathered in Bucharest, discussed a series of measures that would lead to the planning of investment programmes and projects for decarbonisation and reconfiguration of district heating systems.
“Some, too enamored with renewable energies, believed, or still think, that we can heat Bucharest all at once with only green energy. It’s hard. It is close to 1,000 Gcal in winter. But that does not mean that we have to abandon it, but we have to find solutions and, at every moment, seek to have the cheapest thermal energy in Bucharest, and, obviously, as green as possible”, said the general director of ELCEN, Claudiu Crețu.
He explained that energy, in the sense of the new strategy of the Ministry of Energy, must be safe, as accessible and, as green as possible.
“As long as there are funding programs, the capacity to do these projects, it is worth making this energy transition and decarbonizing the system”.
