Romania needs an action plan against energy poverty, since about 47% of the population still use largely wood and coal for heating, said Emil Calota, vice president of the Romanian energy regulatory body ANRE. ”Energy poverty has become a priority for ANRE. I strongly believe we need a national action plan against energy poverty”, he said, at the meeting of the Association of National Energy Efficiency Agencies in Europe (EnR).
Starting with February 2017, ANRE, through the Department for Energy Efficiency, took over the Annual Chairmanship and the EnR association.
Calota explained that while in EU-28 just 10% of the population has unpaid energy bills and arrears, in Romania the figure is of 29%. About 14% of the Romanians cannot warm their house, while the European figure is of 11%. Surprisingly, the dwellings with leakeges and dump walls are much on same level, standing at 15% in Romania and 15.7% in EU.
Also, Romanians spend 63 euro monthly on energy, with 60 euro on rural average and just 31 euro for poor households, he explained.
About 42% of the national heating (of some 76TWh annually) is provided by gas, while 32% is provided by biomass (meaning wood and coal burning, mainly), 16% by the centralized town heating and 10% by electricity, nationwide.
The about 7.5 million households use mainly wood, coal and LNG for heating (47%), while 33% of households use home gas units. Just 17% of households are connected to town central heating systems.
