The heat of the last period showed us how fragile we are from an energy point of view, and a storage system costs three times less than the unfulfilled dream of Romania, namely the Tarnița-Lăpuşteşti Pumped Storage Plant, say the specialists from the Association Prosumers and Energy Communities (APCE).
“The heat showed us how fragile we are energetically, in a Romania where not long ago all the actors on the energy market arrogantly considered that Romania produces its own energy in abundance and especially that the energy of prosumers is not welcome in the low-voltage grids dying. The heat, through the operation of air conditioners and fans, made the Ministry of Energy psychologically prepare the population for black-outs and frequent interruptions. The Minister urgently calls the key players in the energy sector to take measures, thus so that Romania has the necessary energy production during these hot days. They are starting up coal-fired plants and asking OMV to run its own plant from Brazi at maximum speed,” says the source cited by Agerpres.
According to APCE, Romania had a “huge” consumption, at a power of 8,000 – 85,000 MW (several times less than Poland), of which the maximum production was, with all the turbines turned to maximum, somewhere at 7,500 MW.
“Nationally produced energy was insufficient, with Romania importing enormously expensive power of 500-1,000 MW. Wind power was not produced due to lack of wind, and photovoltaic parks, due to daytime temperatures, are 30% less efficient due to the heating of the panels exposed to the sun. The reservoirs do not help us and neither does the flow of the Danube (…) Romania and Transelectrica have done nothing in the area of energy storage at the national level. A storage system of the same capacity costs three times less than the unfulfilled dream of Romania – the Tarnița-Lăpuşteşti pumped storage plant and also three times less than the money wasted by paying the capping to suppliers,” notes the Association.
Specialists mention that, currently, the prosumers have an installed power of over 1.5 GW, the equivalent of the two reactors at Cernavodă, and by the end of the year they estimate that they will reach 2 GW, as much as the “Iron Gates”.
“Prosumers in the number of almost 140,000 households and companies consume daily the energy produced by the systems in the endowment; moreover, they inject the surplus with little money and with payment every 24 months into the same dying local networks, thus taking the burden of energy transport and production somewhere away Prosumers balance and adjust grids Please do an imagination exercise and imagine that 140,000 prosumers would consume daily from the grid and not inject their surplus into the grids, so that their excess energy is consumed by their neighbors during of heatwave or insufficient energy production,” said Dan Pîrșan, the APCE president.
He points out that on the Presidency’s table is Law 255/2024, voted by the Parliament on June 26, 2024, “in which there are at least 7 reasons for sending it back for re-examination”.
“The President of Romania will have to decide if the energy produced by us, the prosumers in Romania, in the proportion of 70% with our own funds, loans and special financial efforts, is worth supporting the dying networks through storage, also with our own money, we deserve to be humiliated by a poisoned amendment introduced in the Parliament by the ‘weak link’ – and the majority of this Romanian democracy. The President of Romania has until Thursday, July 18, to decide what he will do and how he will remain in the collective memory of the prosumers in Romania, or the Romanians, in general,” stresses the specialist.