Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the causes of energy price rise will ask the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Environment to conduct a study on the country’s hydropower potential, commission chairman Daniel Zamfir said at Thursday’s meeting.
The proposal came from USR deputy Cristina Prună, Tanczos Barna,
“It is not clear to me whether the Romanian state, through the Ministry of Environment and Energy, undertakes such a study, which does not represent a series of data to be extracted from I do not know which institute. A study is a matter much more serious. If we want to assume it on behalf of the commission, if not, I can do this and personally, to address this request in writing to the two ministries, to know in black and white whether it is possible or not (for new hydro-centrals to be built). The idea of this commission is not to discuss for the sake of discussions, but to take clear measures and I think it is an opportunity,” said Pruna, according to Agerpres.
The proposal was also supported by Varujan Pambuccian, a minority MP.
“It’s like in mineral resources. The Romanian state needs to know what resources it has and what their dynamics are over time. It is a matter for the Romanian state and addressed to the authorities. These studies should also contain the potential for the next decades if we invest, to know what will happen to agriculture, to desertification, these are things related to estimates,” Pambuccian said.
Present at the meeting, the Minister of Environment, Tanczos Barna, agreed with this proposal. “If the specialists order a study, we will do a study,” the minister replied.
“We will request this study from the commission, the proposal is welcome. It is obvious that we need to know the potential and Mr. Pambuccian used the comparison with mineral resources very well. We need to know if we can count on the hydropower potential,” said PSD MP Daniel Zamfir, chairman of the commission of inquiry.
Earlier in the day, Bogdan Badea, chairman of Hidroelectrica’s board of directors, said that Romania would reach an apocalyptic scenario in which we would have to turn off the lights if we did not urgently build new power plants from non-polluting sources.