The current energy crisis has several concrete solutions – say investors in dialogue with Energynomycs. Ondrej Safar, Country Manager, Evryo, Peter Stohr, CFO of Premier Energy, Lucian Peticilă, CEO Visual Fan, Andrei Manea, president, Romanian Photovoltaic Industry Association – RPIA and Lucian Peticilă, CEO Visual Fan identify, in interviews offered exclusively to Energynomycs, several of the solutions to the current crisis.

 

The solution to the current energy crisis, in the long term, consists in diversifying the energy mix and increasing the flexibility of the system, says Ondrej Safar, Country Manager, Evryo.

“At this moment, the energy system is facing the reduction of hydro production, due to hydrometeorological conditions, as well as the controlled shutdown of the two groups at Cernavodă.

Given the current situation, the priority of Distribuție Oltenia, as a distribution operator, is the safety and continuity of supply. Investments and maintenance works have the role of preventing incidents, and interventions must be rapid when they occur. At the same time, we will coordinate the planned outages very carefully, so as not to affect existing production and to support the commissioning of new capacities.

We are also already working on reducing our own consumption, including by installing photovoltaic plants at transformer stations, and we will also integrate storage solutions. We are analyzing the same approach for the premises where technical conditions exist.

In the long term, the solution is to diversify the energy mix and increase the flexibility of the system. And to have the right mix of incentives for all possible sources of generation and for consumers, so that the system can react adapted to any type challenge. We need sufficient gas and storage capacities to cover peak consumption in situations where hydropower plants or Cernavoda cannot operate at nominal capacity. Developing storage through hydro accumulation can also be an important solution.

At the same time, I believe that the perfect energy mix is ​​determined by the development of networks (modernization, retrofitting, expansion, etc.) and their digitalization – the integration of information from both the equipment that makes up the distribution network and from network users (consumers, prosumers, producers, etc.) into IT systems that manage both the state of “health” of the network and energy flows.

We cannot talk about energy transition and integration of energy from renewable resources with networks and operating modes from 50 years ago.

For now, we are reactive to imposed situations (such as the integration of prosumers) and are looking for technical and legislative solutions to limit their negative impact”, says Ondrej Safar, in an exclusive interview for Energynomics.

 

For his part, Peter Stohr, CFO of Premier Energy, says that the situation we are going through now shows very clearly how important it is to have a balanced and sufficiently diversified energy system.

“Europe has added significant production capacity from renewable sources, which is necessary, but it is not enough to build production capacities if the energy is not available when we need it, if we cannot transport it to where there is demand or if we cannot store it to use it a few hours later.

Romania is a very good example. We have excellent renewable resources and are adding solar and wind capacities at a sustained pace. At the same time, hydro production can be affected by drought, wind and solar production naturally depends on weather conditions, and consumption does not necessarily follow the same profile. We can have enough energy available in the afternoon and, just a few hours later, a much more strained system. This is one of the problems we need to solve.

We still need new generation capacities in Romania and, equally important, a diversified mix. But storage needs to develop in parallel. If we can store the energy produced at two in the afternoon and use it at eight in the evening, when solar production has disappeared and consumption is higher, we reduce the pressure on the system and, at the same time, we make much more efficient use of the renewable energy we already produce.

Grids are equally important. We can build production and storage capacities, but the energy needs to be transported to the consumer. This requires investments in transmission and distribution, but also sufficient interconnection capacities. Romania is part of a regional and European market, and no country will have the perfect mix of production every hour of every day. There will be periods when Romania will export and periods when it will import energy, and interconnections allow us to balance these differences more effectively.

We also need to maintain sufficient flexibility in the system. Batteries will play an increasingly important role, but we also need capacities that can be switched on when the system needs them, including gas-to-power plants and other balancing resources. Energy transition and energy security are not contradictory objectives. The challenge is to make the transition without compromising security of supply along the way.

Equally important is the regulatory framework. Energy investments are capital intensive and develop over many years. Market risk and construction risk can be assessed and managed, but regulatory uncertainty is much more difficult to manage. We need a stable and predictable framework and efficient processes for permitting, connection, testing and certification.

There is no single technology or investment that will solve the problem. We need generation, storage, stronger grids, sufficient balancing capacity and regional interconnection, all of which must develop at a comparable pace. Romania has the resources and geographical position necessary not only to strengthen its own energy security, but also to play a more important role in the regional energy market”, Peter Stohr told Energynomics.

Also, Lucian Peticilă, CEO of Visual Fan, a group that also includes the Allview Energy division, says that Romania needs to move from the accelerated development of production capacities to their efficient integration into the energy system. In many areas, the existing infrastructure is already under heavy demand and cannot always take over the entire production that new renewable capacities can generate.

“One of the essential solutions is the accelerated development of BESS storage parks, which can take over energy during periods of surplus and make it available to the system when there is demand. In parallel, substantial investments are needed in the modernization and expansion of the distribution infrastructure.

Equally important is the optimization and digitalization of documentation, approval, connection and commissioning flows. The pace of investment must be supported not only by physical infrastructure, but also by more efficient administrative and technical processes.

The next stage of the energy market will, in our opinion, be about storage, infrastructure and the ability to efficiently integrate the energy already produced, not just about installing new MW”, argues Lucian Peticilă.

At the same time, Andrei Manea, president of the Romanian Photovoltaic Industry Association – RPIA, states that there are no immediate measures that can solve the current energy crisis. He believes that Romania needs infrastructure that allows the use of energy when the system needs it most and decentralized and complementary production capacities, and this can only be done through a set of policies and measures with a long-term perspective.

“In the short term, storage and increased flexibility can considerably reduce the pressure during peak hours, by flattening the production and consumption curve. In the medium and long term, however, it is necessary to accelerate the modernization and expansion of the transmission and distribution network. Moreover, the regulatory framework must be adapted to current and future development models and support the transition from a reactive system, which responds to needs that have already arisen, to an anticipatory one, which can easily integrate new generating units and the electrification of consumption. In addition to investments in the transmission and distribution network, it is necessary to expand the installed capacity in technologies with short implementation times and low operational costs, which will contribute to tempering prices and increasing the resilience of the system. Solar energy has already demonstrated that it can assume this role. In less than four years, Romania has connected over 7 GW of new photovoltaic capacity to the grid, both through large-scale projects and in prosumers, exceeding, at the beginning of August, the threshold of 8.5 GW installed, which covers, depending on the season, between a quarter and more than half of the daily production.

As for the perfect energy mix, it must be flexible, reliable and capable of delivering energy at competitive prices regardless of the time of day. While the National Integrated Plan for Energy and Climate Change (PNIESC) establishes a share of at least 38.3% of renewable sources in gross final energy consumption, which means approximately 10 GW of photovoltaics, 7 GW of wind and 1.2 GW of storage, as an order of magnitude, for 2030, Romania should be able to integrate approximately 12-14 GW of photovoltaics and 7-8 GW of wind. Moreover, according to Transelectrica data, 10 GWh-20 GWh of storage capacity is needed to complement the generating units.

While market developments indicate that achieving these targets is possible, it is imperative to have a stable regulatory framework that supports the development sector further,” says Andrei Manea.

Adrian Ilie, Managing Director, Enercon Romania, believes that we are using the word “crisis” incorrectly.

“Romania does not have a resource crisis. It has wind, it has solar, it has hydro, it has natural gas, and in the future it will also have offshore production. What it still lacks is the capacity to deliver energy where it is needed and when it is needed.

It is most clearly seen in the evening. At noon, energy is abundant and cheap, sometimes almost free. A few hours later, when the sun sets and consumption rises, we import at high prices, and the final price in the market is given by the most expensive production unit in operation at that moment.

This is not a production problem. It is a problem of flexibility, of the network and of contracting.

Therefore, my solution has three components, in this order: cheap local production, flexibility to move energy in time and infrastructure to move it in space.

Renewables solve the first challenge. Storage solves the second. Investments in the network and interconnections solve the third.

I would add one more aspect, from what I see daily in this position, an aspect that is discussed far too rarely.

The cheapest megawatt-hour in the system is not the one produced by a new project. It is the one produced by an already installed turbine, which is working as it should.

The difference between an availability of 96% and one of 99%, on a national fleet of over 3,000 MW, means tens of thousands of megawatt-hours annually. It is energy already paid for, already connected and already authorized.

Through quality service, predictive maintenance, retrofitting and life extension programs, this energy can be recovered without a single new authorization.

The energy transition should not be measured only in installed megawatts. It should be measured in megawatts that actually produce energy”, says Adrian Ilie.

 

The opinions were expressed in the Energynomics Q3 2026 Magazine, which will be launched this week.

 

Autor: Bogdan Tudorache

Active in the economic and business press for the past 26 years, Bogdan graduated Law and then attended intensive courses in Economics and Business English. He went up to the position of editor-in-chief since 2006 and has provided management and editorial policy for numerous economic publications dedicated especially to the community of foreign investors in Romania. From 2003 to 2013 he was active mainly in the financial-banking sector. He started freelancing for Energynomics in 2013, notable for his advanced knowledge of markets, business communities and a mature editorial style, both in Romanian and English.