In the past seven years, Hidroelectrica has paid taxes on milled water worth about half a billion euro (2.3 billion lei), but the state wants more money from the recalculation and retroactive payment of the royalty.

Hidroelectrica paid 360 million lei taxes on milled water last year, according to data published by the company. It is the second tax paid by the company from the point of view of the amount, after the payment of the corporate income tax, in 2018, which was of 383 million lei, according to e-nergia.ro.

Hidroelectrica has long paid the state a tax on milled water, at a value of 1.1 lei per thousand cubic meters. If for the hydroelectric power stations of the mountain lakes the tax effect is smaller (less water is used for energy production, since the water has a larger “fall”), for the lower altitude water power plants, such as those on the Danube or from the lower Olt, which use high water flows, the impact reaches 40 lei/ MWh, as explained by the company officials.