At a press conference focused on the energy sector, Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan announced a series of measures through which the authorities aim to unlock investments. Alongside Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan, the head of government explained that energy prices depend mainly on two things –how much energy Romania produces and how the market and grid access are regulated. The central idea is that Romania must simultaneously increase production and revise the rules to achieve lower prices, greater predictability, and energy security. “Energy prices are determined primarily by two factors,” said Bogdan Ivan: “production capacity” and “market regulations.”
For over an hour, the two officials outlined five courses of action that, from the government’s perspective, should eliminate bottlenecks in the system and accelerate the commissioning of new energy production, storage, and transmission capacities.
Unblocking viable projects and clearing the grid of speculative ATRs
The first priority – and the one the prime minister emphasized most – concerns grid access. Ilie Bolojan’s message was that Romania no longer faces merely a problem of insufficient investment, but also one of inefficient utilization of connection capacity. We must “eliminate speculative technical connection permits that block or make access to the power grids more expensive,” said the prime minister.
The central argument put forward by the head of government is the disparity between the economy’s actual needs and the volume of ATRs issued. According to Bolojan, with a need of approximately 9,000 MW, Romania has issued ATRs totaling over 78,000 MW, and “less than 10% of them have moved forward.” The political conclusion drawn by the prime minister is radical: “90% of these projects are speculative in nature.” In his words, these ATR holders “do not intend to develop them, but aim to sell them,” and the consequence is that “they block access for serious investors who have financing but cannot get connected.”
From this perspective, the government wants to encourage the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) to adopt stricter rules: higher guarantees, shorter deadlines, forfeiture of the guarantee if the project does not move forward, and, essentially, a rapid screening process to distinguish between genuine and speculative projects. Bolojan explicitly stated that the current guarantees are too low and that simply referring to the connection cost is insufficient. “I believe that the increases in the guarantee from 5% to 20% of the connection cost are small,” he said, suggesting that the deterrent level should be raised.
The political message is that the pipeline must be “cleared out” so that the space currently occupied by projects that are not being built can be freed up for investors who have the funds, clear timelines, and the intention to carry out the projects. In the prime minister’s view, this is the only way to reduce the costs of strengthening the grid, which are then passed on to the economy and ultimately to consumers’ bills. “We no longer want this,” said Bolojan, referring to the mechanism whereby connection capacity becomes more expensive precisely for those who actually want to build.
Less volatility, more long-term contracts
The second area concerns market dynamics, not just production and infrastructure. Ilie Bolojan stated that “the energy market accounts for a significant share of the final prices paid by consumers,” which means that simply building more capacity is not enough if energy continues to be traded within an overly expensive commercial framework.
The prime minister identified two main measures: reducing exposure in spot markets and promoting long-term contracts. “We need to reduce volatility in this market” and “expand the volumes traded on a long-term basis with end customers,” said Bolojan. Following the same logic, he linked this move to the government’s outstanding payments to suppliers, arguing that the authorities’ financial discipline can encourage more stable commercial behavior.
Bogdan Ivan elaborated on this idea by referring to the visible effects on the market. The minister argued that, following a series of administrative measures and increased competition among suppliers, lower prices for consumers have already emerged. “We’ve reached a point today where average offers are 15% lower,” he said, adding that consumers switching providers has forced even companies that charged higher rates to come back with more competitive offers.
Storage is becoming the new priority for the energy system
The third direction is perhaps the one most clearly articulated by the Minister of Energy. While in previous years the focus was on PV and wind power, the government now says we are entering the “years of storage.” The phrase comes from Ilie Bolojan: “We should have the storage era in the coming years,” because without batteries and balancing capacity, the growth of fluctuating sources risks deepening, rather than resolving, the imbalances in the system.
Bogdan Ivan explained this idea in more detail, starting with the effect of excess photovoltaic production at midday. “The main problem we face right now is this extremely high price,” said the minister, noting, however, that, paradoxically, during certain hours Romania experiences very low or even negative prices, precisely because of the concentration of photovoltaic production. The proposed solution is to shift energy from hours of overproduction to peak hours. “All the priority investments we manage at the Ministry of Energy are focused on storage,” Ivan stated.
The minister also outlined some specific milestones: by the end of the year, the ministry estimates that approximately 1,500 MW of storage capacity will be installed, funded through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and the Modernization Fund, plus two funding rounds totaling 300 million euros for stand-alone units. “If we manage to store that energy, we will be able to use it in the evening when we have peak consumption,” and this should temper both price increases and costs in the balancing market.
For the government, storage is no longer a secondary aspect of the energy transition, but rather the very mechanism through which renewables can become economically and systemically sustainable.
Following the same line of reasoning, Ivan added that the ministry is also pursuing pumped-storage hydroelectric projects, such as Tarnița and Frasin-Pângărați, as well as the continuation of the nuclear program through Units 3 and 4 at Cernavodă.
Pressure on state-owned companies
Officials also addressed the governance of public energy companies. Here, Ilie Bolojan argued that the issue is not merely who runs these companies, but rather what is contractually required of them and the criteria by which they are evaluated. In his words, “any improvement will be reflected in quantities and prices,” precisely because large state-owned companies play a decisive role in national production.
The prime minister explicitly criticized the performance indicators, which he considers vague and lacking in real consequences. “We have performance indicators that are irrelevant and ambiguous,” he said, insisting that, under these circumstances, investments can be delayed for years without managers losing their positions.
To support his argument, Bolojan cited several major examples: the delayed projects at the Oltenia Energy Complex, the power plant in Iernut, and the pace of Hidroelectrica’s investments in storage or new capacity. His point is that if the contracts had included clear obligations, with specific deadlines and effective penalties, the managerial pressure to deliver would have been different. “If you haven’t completed the investment and aren’t delivering energy to the grid, you lose your mandate,” was the principle outlined by the head of government.
The announced solution is a comprehensive audit of service contracts and a revision of performance metrics. The prime minister summarized: “Let’s audit all management contracts,” “Let’s introduce clear and measurable metrics,” and where performance is lacking, management “must be replaced.”
Strategic projects must be freed from bureaucratic gridlock
The fifth priority concerns large-scale investments – those capable of bringing about structural change in the market. The Prime Minister stated that Romania must “support strategic investments,” ranging from major interconnections and cross-border networks to investments in mass production and large-scale projects. In his speech, the emphasis was placed on simplifying procedures: “accelerating investments above a significant threshold,” “simplifying authorization processes,” and “expropriation procedures.”
Bogdan Ivan went on to discuss a fast-track process for large-scale projects. “We cannot place a 5 MW project (…) on the same quality level as projects of 200, 300, or 500 MW,” said the minister, announcing the selection of investments totaling at least 300 million euros for an accelerated process of approvals, agreements, and permits. Ivan noted that there are projects funded “as far back as five years ago” that “have not yet made more than 2% progress” due to expropriations and bureaucracy. “We are updating the list of strategic projects at the national level,” he said.