Distributed energy production is necessary for the future balancing of the national power system and can be achieved without the construction of 50 or 100 MW ‘mausoleums’.
“Let’s stop making ‘mausoleums’ of 50-100 MW. Flexible solutions are needed”, said Cristian Athanasovici, Business Development Manager, Kawasaki Gas Turbine Europe, during the conference “Energy efficiency for the energy transition – Brașov”.
Currently, the balancing of the energy system is mainly achieved with the help of hydropower plants operated by the state company Hidroelectrica. For the situation where hydropower plants are unavailable, fossil fuel or natural gas units are needed.
“We cannot build large power plants. Then a distributed production is needed, which favors cogeneration. The more renewables there are, the more cogeneration there will be,” added Athanasovici.
From his point of view, natural gas, although considered a transition fuel, is still necessary, especially since renewable energies cannot fully replace it in the production, for example, of steam at high pressures used in various industrial applications. That is why a symbiosis between the cogeneration sector and that of energy production from renewable energy sources is necessary.
He added that before hydrogen can be used, it is preferable to capture, store and use CO2, which has multiple uses.
“We cannot ignore natural gas, which is a transitional fuel that must be used judiciously. However, we must know that there are industrial processes that need energy that cannot be produced by renewables. If I need steam at 20 atmospheres, it cannot be produced by renewables”, said Athanasovici.
DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF CRISTIAN ATHANASOVICI
Currently, the approach to the production and consumption of electricity is based on four pillars, namely decarbonization, decentralization, digitization and distributed energy production.
The conference in Brașov was the first of a series of 5 scheduled by the Energynomics communication platform, the Romanian Fund for Energy Efficiency – FREE and the Directorate for Energy Efficiency within the Ministry of Energy. The project is financed by Norway Grants 2014-2021.