The growth of renewable generation capacity in Romania risks being blocked by a lack of investment in distribution infrastructure, warned Volker Raffel, CEO of E.ON Romania. The solution? A minimal adjustment in a consumer’s monthly bill could mobilise significant resources for grids.
“We can, as an electricity distribution sector, unlock an additional €1 billion – or 5 billion lei – per year in additional investment in our network, just by adding 50 bani per month on the bill for the group of customers under 100 kWh”, explained Volker Raffel, at the 11th Energy Strategy Summit, the flagship event of Energynomics. His argument is simple and pragmatic: this tiny sum would allow operators to modernise networks at the pace required by the energy transition.
Raffel also provided the necessary context for understanding this call. Since the privatisation of the network and until today, the E.ON group has invested more than 10 billion lei in Romania in distribution infrastructure. The result is visible: “We had an average interruption of 8,800 minutes in 2004. Today we have an average annual interruption of less than 67 minutes,” he said. This is a major technical achievement, but one that needs to be reinforced with constant and accelerated investment, especially in the context of structural changes in consumption.
“We have bottlenecks in our grids because we have generation elsewhere than we have in the past. And if we continue to build hundreds or thousands of MW renewable or conventional, but we don’t unblock the grid through increased investments, we just reinforce congestion instead of solving it,” warned the CEO of E.ON Romania. This is a clear diagnosis, which emphasises the gap between the development of generation capacity and the actual capacity of the grid to take and transport energy.
He insisted that now all the arguments are already on the table – including a detailed economic study showing that investment in distribution has a remarkable economic multiplier: “In our case of distribution networks we have an even higher impact, minimally 1 in 8, but up to 1 in 10.” Moreover, in the absence of a solid network, Romania also loses out in terms of attracting investment: “If we don’t have a good network, it means that each customer has to pay all the connection costs, which are almost 50% of his investment.”
In the short term, Raffel suggests a change in the outlook for tariffs: “We’re talking about a 50-money-a-month impact on the tariff.” In his view, this adjustment can be accompanied by targeted safeguards for vulnerable consumers, so that the really sensitive categories are not affected.
În paralel, Raffel atrage atenția asupra unei schimbări tehnologice majore: rețelele trebuie să fie digitalizate și pregătite pentru un sistem energetic descentralizat. „În momentul de față avem să gestionăm mii de producători în țară și, în același timp, și mii de prosumatori. Vin pompe de căldură, vin stații de încărcare – toate acestea trebuie să fie gestionate într-un fel sănătos. Și asta este posibil doar cu investiții în IT.”
With this in mind, he calls on regulators to remove limitations on investment in digitalization, which no longer reflect the technological reality of the modern grid. “We have to prepare to better manage the distributed system. We have to strengthen cyber-security and the network at the same time. We have new challenges, but also old networks that need to be replaced.”
Volker Raffel concluded his plea with a message of balance and responsibility: the energy transition is not just a political objective, but a complex technical operation, involving coordinated and sustained investment in physical networks, information systems and the human capacity to implement them.
2025 Energy Strategy Summit was organised by Energynomics, with the support of our partners: AJ Brand, Elektra Renewable Support, ABB, Adrem Asset Management, Alive Capital, BCR, DEKRA, Distribuție Energie Electrică Romania, E-Infra, Eaton Electric, Electrica Furnizare, EnergoBit, Enery, Enevo Group, Enexus, European Investment Bank, Evryo, Exim Banca Romaneasca, Delgaz Grid, Genesis Biopartner, Huawei, ING Bank, Jantzen Renewables, Keno Energy, Leader Team, LONGi, Nano Energies, Prime Batteries Technology, Procesio, Procredit Bank, Relians, Renomia, Romgaz, Schneider Electric, script.ai, Sermatec, smartPulse, Solar Today, SolaX, Think Blu Solution, Voltika, Wiren, YEO, AIployees, Aqua Carpatica, Alexandrion, Carbon Tool, Imsol.