“Today we are much more prepared at the level of the city hall to deal with energy efficiency issues,” said Radu Botez, deputy mayor of Iaşi Municipality, at the opening of the conference “Actions for Sustainable Energy Consumption” organized by energynomics.ro on Tuesday, April 25, the first scheduled in the information campaign “Energy efficiency for big results”. More than 70 experts from Iasi participated in the debates which were stimulated by five speakers, leading representatives of ENGIE Romania, Phoenix Contact, Enero, EximBank and Quartz Matrix.

Iasi City Hall supports the new developments in the energy field and any idea, any partnership or initiative will be welcomed with open arms, deputy mayor Radu Botez summed up the attitude of the municipality towards the field of energy efficiency.

“We hope that this year we will take over the public lighting in Iasi so that we would to be able to replace the pillars and introduce LED lighting,” said Radu Botez, who also said that the works on the rehabilitation of the tram lines have already began, and “this month we have talks for buying trams with different consumption characteristics for sustainable economy and development.”

Energy efficiency is key for proper business management

Nicolae Sabin Dordea, Business Sales Manager, ENGIE Romania Nord, briefly presented the intentions of the company at national level, focusing on four distinct directions:

• Decarbonising the environment by investing in eco-mobility solutions
• Generating decentralized energy with micro-cogeneration
• Digital solutions for monitoring energy use
• Energy service solutions

As part of the ENGIE Group, one of the world’s leading energy companies, ENGIE Romania is an important and local player with about 1.6 million customers and a turnover of nearly one billion euros (2015). ENGIE Romania is the first natural gas importer in Romania and the first natural gas supplier on the regulated market, and Distrigaz Sud Networks is number one in the natural gas distribution in Romania. ENGIE Services is a market leader in the technical services segment with 650,000 customers.

From this position, Nicolae Sabin Dordea exposed for the clients in Iaşi the natural gas supply offers – Business Gaz Fix, Business Gaz Flex, Business Tailor Made, as well as the electricity supply offers (standard and customized). The ENGIE Romania representative also referred to the extensive consulting and services package for optimizing energy consumption, and also the SMCE application – which allows the customer to monitor and analyze energy consumption by energy types (natural gas or electricity) so that it would be able to intervene for consumption management and budget optimization.

Cost zero for the beneficiary

A product dedicated to buildings with high electricity and heat consumption (hotels, hostels, hospitals and others) is the cogeneration micro-power plant for which ENGIE Romania can provide the initial investment through a F-BOOT contract (Finance-Built-Own-Operate-Transfer).

“It is well-known that half of the electricity bill is made by the system tarriffs (transport and distribution); this microCHP eliminates these costs. Another helpful element in reducing costs is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat in the customer’s location, which allows own production of energy,” explained Nicolae Sabin Dordea.

After 9 years of operation, the equipment is transferred to the beneficiary free of charge, Dordea said. He presented the pilot project at Dragului Hotel in Predeal, where the benefits are already quantified: lower fuel consumption, lower environmental impact, and significant savings with energy cost.

First public GNCv station

ENGIE Romania intends to remain a player in sustainable urban mobility, said Dordea, who exemplified the company’s efforts to reduce pollution with the support it gives in the development of GNCv (compressed natural gas) infrastructure. “Gas is a greener alternative to classic fuels, for it is nontoxic, less corrosive and it has a low degree of flammability. By compressing it, the volume of gas is reduced to 1% of the initial volume and it can be used on all classes of motor vehicles,” explained the representative of ENGIE Romania.

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“We will open the first GNCv public station in Bucharest by middle of this year and we will continue to develop a network in the years to come. We have well developed discussions with partners in the field of automotive production on this type of fuel for passenger and freight transport,” said Nicolae Sabin Dordea.

Electric Mobility Solutions from Phoenix Contact

Cătălin Marius Lepinzean, Business Development Manager at Phoenix Contact, mentioned two of the directions of action that the German group has in Romania. Founded in 1923, PHOENIX CONTACT Gmbh & Ko is a leader in the field of electrical component manufacturing and industrial automation technology, and in 1928 Phoenix Contact invented the terminal block (RWE clamp) for the German electricity company RWE. With 15,000 employees globally, the Phoenix Contact group has an annual turnover of two billion euros. “What Phoenix Contact proposes is this mix – starting from components, through integration of the solutions and implementing some ideas through appropriate technical solutions,” explained Cătălin Marius Lepinzean. Along with its partners, the company has implemented in Romania efficiency solutions in the production infrastructure, such as power conditioning, energy management, lighting control.

An important segment of the company’s activity is also electric mobility, an area which is not so developed in Romania, but which has great potential. “While we do not produce turn-key stations, we support system integrators in Romania to build such stations. We have fruitful collaborations with 4 or 5 companies, that is, we have already built and installed some stations,” Lepinzean said. Such companies, with the support of Phoenix Contact, offer integrated solutions – both the stations themselves and the networks and hardware / software architecture necessary for data transfer and complex network administration.

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At present, the main beneficiaries are small or larger companies who want to install electric charghing stations in their car parks or other spaces they own: supermarkets, hotels, office buildings. Cătălin Marius Lepinzean also mentioned some plans for creating national networks of electric car charging stations.

ENERO – free support program for young SMEs

In the opening of the second session – Business Breakfast START2ACT, Nicoleta Ion presented the opportunities that SMEs and Start-ups in Romania have through the START2ACT, a project funded under the European Union’s research program Horizon 2020.

“A key area of intervention for increased energy efficiency through behavioral changes is represented by office equipment, which has the largest increase in energy consumption in the business area,” Nicoleta Ion explained. Office equipment consumes 15% of the total electricity used in offices, and the trend is that this share will increase to 30% by 2020. Even though SMEs are not yet subject to a legal obligation to conduct an energy audit once in 4 years, achieving energy savings through cost-effective or costless measures (behavioral changes) should be aknowledged as an asset for SME owners and managers.

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ENERO is a consulting center based in Bucharest that can offer free assistance through a so-called “mentoring program”. The first visit is devoted to an assessment of energy consumption and translates into implementing fast, cost-free measures, Nicoleta Ion explained. The next two visits have the objective of identifying opportunities to reduce consumption through low-cost measures, and more costly measures, respectively.

Nicoleta Ion gave some examples of actions taken following these visits:

• assessment of the consumers and of the energy consumption
• consumption analysis based on invoices
• evaluation of the thermal insulation by thermal imaging
• recording consumption over a period of time

All start-ups younger than 5 years are eligible in this free program and they are encouraged to contact ENERO at [email protected] or [email protected].

Financing, guarantees and insurance from EximBank

Cristian Sirbu, EximBank Regional Manager, presented how the bank is involved in supporting and promoting the Romanian business environment. “Like any other bank, we have in our portfolio products and banking services that can be accessed by any type of company, whether it is an SME or a large company, it carries out international transactions, or it only addresses the internal market”, Cristian Sîrbu said. In addition, EximBank offers for the commercial banks in the local market guarantees and state guarantees that facilitate the acceleration of lending to local firms, with a better risk coverage. “Because we are the only bank in Romania that acts as the state’s agent, we issue sovereign guarantees that reduce the risks associated with lending, thus facilitating the access of companies to financing,” the EximBank representative pointed out.

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“We cover up to 80% of the bank guarantee letters to be issued by commercial banks for projects of infrastructure development, utilities, research and development, environmental protection, employment and training of staff, SME development etc, “Sîrbu said.

He also presented the services for risk minimization, be it by providing commercial information about the activity of a potential business partner at home or abroad, which can be used for taking a collaboration decision, – or by the insurance package offered by EXIMASIG, the insurance company owned by EximBank.

Energy efficiency through IoT technologies

In his presentation, Bogdan Teodorescu, Research & Development Director at Quartz Matrix, has highlighted some examples of using the IoT (Internet of Things) technologies for energy efficiency. “IoT technologies bring flexibility and modularity in energy efficiency and management systems by agilely adapting these systems to processes, strategies and requirements of the user,” said Bogdan Teodorescu.

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He briefly outlined the structure of an IoT system dedicated to energy efficiency and the benefits of an integrated energy monitoring system. In the case study he presented, a company manufacturing precision components for the automotive industry has achieved a reduction in direct energy consumption by more than 20%, as well as a total reduction in parasitic consumption (representing about 10% of the total initial consumption). As about the costs, the reduction was over 30%, by renegotiating contracts, and monitoring expected consumption budgets, among others.

Over 70 representatives from #better, 3P Frigoglass, Apan Iaşi, Artmark, BMW Group, Brikston Construction Solutions SA, Can&Power, Delphi Diesel, Universitatea Tehnică “Gheorghe Asachi”, E.ON, Elsaco Brunata, Energy Audits Iasi, ENGIE România, Everlight , Exim Bank, GEFCO, Iaşi Tex, INCD Urban, Miolok, Moneycorp, Primăria Municipiului Iasi, Quartz Matrix, Recom Instal, Carrefour România, SC Q SRL, Sucursala Căi Ferate Iaşi – CNCF CFR, Total Energy Solution, Vector Trust, Vestra, VSB Energie Verde, WPD attended the presentations and participated in discussions.

The event was organized by energynomics.ro and supported by our partners: ENGIE România, BMW APAN Motors Iaşi, Eximbank, Gefco, Phoenix Contact, Servelect.

The Gold sponsor of the conference was ENGIE Romania, a company that, together with its subsidiaries, serves approximately 1.6 million customers, operates a network of 19,000 kilometers in 19 counties in Southern Romania and Bucharest.

Participation

In April, energynomics.ro launched the communication campaign “Energy efficiency for big results”, within the project Start2Act, funded under the European Union’s Research and Innovation Program Horizon 2020, run in Romanian, and aimed at informing and educating the decision makers in the Romanian public authorities and companies – from Start-Ups and SMEs to the largest enterprises.