The only real solution for capitalising on Romania’s renewable resources is to create functional and interconnected industrial energy communities, not isolated in abstract concepts, says Vlad Stoicescu, President of the Romanian Association for Sustainable Fuels (ACS).
“We can no longer talk about individual consumption but about integrated value chains. If renewable energy is not taken up by industry, then there have to be other EU mechanisms through which it can be used intelligently through hydrogen, cogeneration, ammonia or even agricultural fertilisers,” Stoicescu said at the “Energy Day” conference organised by Energynomics within the Green Energy Expo & Romenvirotec 2025.
In his view, the concept of an industrial energy community needs to go beyond the boundaries artificially imposed by current EU regulations.
“We cannot talk about a community enclosed between four fences and three roofs with photovoltaic panels, when we have dormant industrial infrastructure and untapped agricultural potential. We need to work at scale,” he continued.
A concrete example is Galati, where there is the potential to become a true “hydrogen valley”, as Liberty Steel could consume up to 1.5 GW of green hydrogen with electric arc furnaces. To cover this consumption, however, six times more renewable capacity is needed than the hydrogen produced. This could be beneficial for that area because it could pick up the surplus electricity generated by prosumers but which they cannot consume. At the same time, prosumers should be included in a real compensation system with certificates of origin and emission reductions.
Besides heavy industry, the energy community can include agriculture, public transport and even rural areas. Surplus hydrogen can be converted into ammonia, which in turn can be used directly in fertilisation, revitalising soils and reducing dependence on imported fertilisers from Russia or China.
The president of ACS warns that Romania risks missing major opportunities because there is no efficient mechanism for aggregating the energy produced by prosumers.
“Instead of using this money for cross-border industrial projects, we have chosen to fund small isolated producers. It’s not bad, but without a common vision, we get stuck in unnecessary capital expenditure. Municipalities need to step in with land, public-private partnerships and community projects above 1 MW,” he added.
The conference „Energy Day at Green Energy Expo & Romenvirotec” was organized by Energynomics, with the support of our partners Elektra Renewable Support, LONGi, SolaX Power and with the involvement of HENRO, COGEN România, CIGRE România and FEL România.