The Japanese company Itochu will participate in the review of the technical documentation for the development of the Tarnița-Lăpuşteşti pumped storage hydropower plant, and also in the following stages: feasibility study, technical design and project execution, the Minister of Energy, Sebastian-Ioan Burduja, said on Monday, according to Agerpres.
“Today we also managed to take some concrete steps, beyond the very good discussions for the future. First of all, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the large Japanese company Itochu. It concerns the Tarnița-Lăpuşteşti pumped storage hydropower project, a project of up to 1,000 megawatts of installed power, a large green battery, with the two lakes, a vital project for the balance of the national and even regional energy system, even more so in the context in which the share of renewable energy production, green energy – solar, wind – increases. And then we need storage in batteries and in pumped storage plants. It is a first step. The Itochu company will be with us in the following stages: feasibility study and execution. of the project, stages that will go through all the legal rigors from the perspective of competitiveness. So, it will be an open procedure for all companies that are willing to participate, but we found, trying to restart this project, that in Romania we no longer have expertise for a work of such complexity,” said Sebastian-Ioan Burduja, at the end of the Romania – Japan Forum.
He also stated that ELCEN and Panasonic are working on a joint project aimed at a complex system of photovoltaic panels, battery storage and green hydrogen production.
“In the next period, the agreement between ELCEN and Panasonic will be signed and I think it is a symbolic step in what we call the green transition of the energy sector. A company that has started to modernize at an accelerated pace. Moreover, this month we will sign and the three contracts for the modernization of CET Sud, CET Progresul and CET Grozăveşti, the ones that remained unmodernized from the 60s-70s, the Ministry of Energy successfully obtaining 361,000,000 euros non-refundable from the Fund for modernization, at the session that ended recently, on October 22,” said Sebastian Burduja.