Romania will receive approval to finance, from the Modernization Fund, with 361 million euros, the modernization of three more CETs, respectively CET Sud, CET Progresu and CET Grozăvești, the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja, said on Wednesday.
“From the Modernization Fund, you will find out very soon, because on October 22nd is the Committee of Member States and Romania will receive the approval to finance with 361 million euros the modernization of three more CETs, probably the most important. I am referring to CET Sud, CET Progresu and CET Grozăvesti. With these investments, the heating system in Bucharest, at least the heating agent production area, will be up to the latest standards,” said the minister, quoted by Agerpres.
He emphasized that Romania must more courageously assume the role of leader in the field and mentioned that the representatives of the European Investment Bank conveyed that Romania has an absolute record in attracting European money.
“I think that Romania must more courageously take on the role of leader. For too many years we sat with our heads bowed, without valuing our people, without valuing our resources, without valuing our companies and the environment academic. In the energy sector, we have no reason to be overly modest. In the last year and three months, we have managed to attract around 13 billion euros in non-reimbursable money. Just yesterday (Tuesday), in Luxembourg, at the Council of Ministers, in a meeting with the representatives of the European Investment Bank, which manages the Modernization Fund, they told us that Romania has an absolute record. So, in a year three months, 5 billion euros, non-reimbursable money, money that is not in the deficit, money that is for investments. And part of these investments are already working,” said Burduja.
He reiterated that for the distribution operators, for the modernization of the network, almost 1.2 billion euros were allocated, and for the transport network, for the high voltage lines, about half a billion euro.
“All this facilitates Romania’s energy transition. In addition, a lot of money, billions of euros for production, because for 30 years, better 30 years, Romania has not invested in large production capacities. I think we all know this which, in a year like 2024, we are definitely dependent on electricity imports. Last year was better, we had water, we had wind, we probably had less periods of unavailability at Unit 1 from Cernavodă and we were net exporters. This year, unfortunately, we are not in the same situation. It was a dry year, so we have reached the hand of the times, because, I repeat, in 30 or so years it was not invested. I think I said it before, compared to 89, today we have half the production capacity in the strip, and what I think we have managed to do lately is to recover or start to recover the lost time,” Sebastian Burduja also said.