Dan Dragoș Drăgan, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Energy, announced during the Energy Forum – Renewables event organized on Thursday, May 11, by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Romania (CCIpR) that Romania will replace coal capacities by 2030 with 10,000 MW of renewable and clean energy, but also through the use of small size reactors (SMR) and new capacities on gas, the much-needed transition fuel for grid balancing.
“We find these data in the PNIESC review, which is ongoing, and this year, in the summer, we will have the first public debate on this aspect,” said Dan Drăgan.
“When it comes to renewables, we rely on all technologies… We hope that the offshore wind law will be ready this summer and presented to the Parliament for adoption. We want onshore and offshore wind, photovoltaic – all categories – consumers, independent producers… We want hydro, including geothermal and bio-fuel. How will the network meet these challenges? We have two large sources of funding – PNRR, where we had a call for projects for the creation of new capacities from renewable sources – standing at 600 million euros. I announce that the first 250 applicants have already received the requested clarifications and we called in the first 20 to sign the contracts. During this month we will finish the evaluation of all these projects. The target is to have at least 950 MW installed through this measure,” added Dan Drăgan.
“We have closed new contracts for high-efficiency cogeneration capacities for urban heating – there are 300 million euros allocated for these investments. The rest of the money will come from the Modernization Fund, currently valued at over 16 billion euros. Romania already has a leading place, with signed contracts and approved amounts of over 5.2 billion euros. At the moment, contracts have been signed for the transport network (of Transelectrica –e.n.) for over 430 million euros, and we hope that by the end of this week we will also sign the first contracts to strengthen the distribution network. The amount allocated for distribution networks is currently of 1.3 billion euros, of which 1.1 billion euros are grants and 200 million euros are co-financing. The money is there and we hope that the implementation period will be very short,” said Drăgan.
He mentioned that financing lines of 2 billion euros for renewables have been approved.
“There are four schemes, each of 500 million euros, for production from renewable sources – one allocated for public authorities, another 500 million euros for prosumers legal entities, 500 million euros for independent producers and another 500 million euros for producers in the agricultural segment through a scheme developed in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture,” added the state secretary.
“We anticipate that somewhere in the middle of this year, so, this summer, we will be able to launch the calls for projects… We will also launch a new, much more flexible Guide.”
