The Ministry of Energy has five points that it has put together, measures that should be implemented starting next week and that should lead to an average reduction in energy prices by 20-25% in approximately half a year, announced the Minister of Energy, Bogdan Gruia Ivan.
“We brought ANRE (National Energy Regulatory Authority – editor’s note) producers, suppliers, electricity distributors, and exchanges to the same table to find a formula to lower the price. It must be taken into account that for 35 years these people have not all sat at the table at the same time, they have not worked together. We managed, after endless debates, lasting dozens of hours, to agree on some points that could lead to a reduction in the price of energy in the short and medium term. We also debated these points in the Government. Yesterday we agreed on a final form, and next week I will present them in a press conference, together with those involved, because not all measures are exclusively the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy,” Ivan told Digi 24.
He emphasized that over time, a series of decisions were taken that made Romania have the most expensive energy in Europe, such as the fact that they were taken out of production “7,000 megawatts, a production line based on gas and coal” and the most ambitious decarbonization target in the entire European Union was assumed, according to Agerpres.
“We assumed, about 5 years ago, that we would take the coal-fired power plants in the Jiu Valley, at the Oltenia Energy Complex, in Gorj, out of production, while Germany and Poland assumed targets for 2040 – 2049. I would call it a hasty assumption, which, perhaps, tried to lower the price of final energy, but you make this assumption the moment you make sure that you put something in place. Two very large gas-fired power plants were planned, which have an implementation delay of almost three years. You can’t stop something without putting it in place. Of the 7,000 MW that were taken out of production, only 1,200 were reinstalled in on-grid electricity production capacities, coal and gas. And at the moment, Romania ends up importing approximately 20% of its energy needs, importing it at peak times, when energy is most expensive, that is, between 6 and 10 pm. And this creates an imbalance and leads us to the situation of having this very expensive electricity”, explained the Minister of Energy.
He added that, in this context, each project was taken and analyzed separately, projects that are 20-30 years old, which are in stages of completion of over 80% and which are blocked by various court processes, due to the blocking of environmental permits.
“I took each one individually. I’m working to ensure that they move forward and that we have the best representation in all courts in Romania so that we don’t continue to have hundreds of millions of euros stuck in these projects that have so far failed to be completed, and that’s what I’m fighting for. Two, the Iernut project. We have another 700 megawatts there, the Mintia project, which is a private one, which we want to support, the nuclear projects at Reactor 1, Reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavodă, in order to be able to increase the production capacities of on-grid electricity. We made a clear analysis and, in the next year and a half, we will enter production with approximately 1,800 – 2,000 MW of on-grid electricity,” Bogdan Ivan also said.
On the other hand, the head of Energy specified that it is also about market rules, “which people have complained about many times when they did not understand why we pay such expensive energy”.
“A reality is that active electricity represents approximately 52% of the bill. The rest is tariffs, accessories, energy transport, VAT, excise duties and so on. And we have calculated how we can reduce all these things, to shorten that speculation that has been talked about for many years, the disloyal and unproductive intermediaries in the market. And in this formula we have these 5 points that we have combined, through which, for example, those who want to purchase electricity on the forward markets, that is, in advance, to buy in 2025, in August, for the year 2027 (…) must guarantee 10% of the purchase value,” the minister added.
Another measure aims to shorten the chain between the electricity producer, which today is largely represented by companies with majority state capital (Hidroelectrica, Nuclearelectrica, CE Oltenia), and those suppliers that have more than 200,000 – 300,000 customers.
“We have a much simpler market, a market between producers and large suppliers directly, which automatically, once this mechanism is implemented, will make the price go down,” he pointed out.
Ivan also mentioned the market maker mechanism, the one through which an extremely important player in the market is taken as a reference, who is an electricity producer and who will be able to stabilize the price and bring the price down.
“All these measures that should be implemented starting next week in the next three months should lead to an average reduction in the price of energy by 20-25% in approximately half a year,” the Minister of Energy pointed out.