The Executive approved on Wednesday the Ordinance establishing the institutional and financial framework for the operation of the Modernization Fund, which has a value of approximately 13 billion euro, announced at the briefing at the end of the Government meeting the Minister of Energy, Virgil Popescu.
“We have approved the Modernization Fund Ordinance. It is an ordinance that practically establishes the institutional and financial framework for the operation of the Modernization Fund. The modernization fund consists at the level of the European Union from the sale of 2% of the total greenhouse gas emission certificates and Romania has allocated 11.98% of the total of these certificates. The absolute value of CO2 certificates, there are about 2.2 million CO2 certificates. At an average value of CO2 certificates we are talking about a total value of the Modernization Fund of about 13 billion euro, maybe even higher, as the value of CO2 certificates will increase,” said the Energy minister.
According to him, the Ordinance establishes exactly how the financial flows work, how the works from the Modernization Fund are settled, but also the priority areas, which are those from the Modernization Fund Directive. It is about renewable energy, nuclear energy, electricity transmission networks, natural gas distribution and transmission networks, financing of gas storage projects.
“Obviously, we are talking about everything that means electricity distribution, electricity storage. Practically, we are talking about all the new and modern technologies that are in the field of electricity”, Virgil Popescu stressed, according to Agerpres.
He added that, in addition, the Ordinance comes with a novelty in that it seeks to encourage the absorption of money from modernization funds and is intended to work in partnerships through delegation agreements with colleagues from other ministries, other central public institutions.
“It will probably be the first delegated agreement signed next week. Basically, we want to work with ministries, launch projects in parallel so as to attract as much money as possible. Virtually all central public institutions that prove to have logistical and administrative capacity to be able to launch project calls will sign delegation agreements with the Ministry of Energy,” the minister added.
He also said that this year projects were approved in the investment committee on April 7 for the Oltenia Energy Complex, for Transelectrica and a scheme of 1.1 billion euro for electricity distributors, in total the envelope of projects approved in the investment committee being of 2 .5 billion euro, of which 1.4 billion are projects that can start this year.