Romania's energy output not enough, which is why peak-hour imports sometimes exceed 2,500 MW (minister)

Romania's energy output is not enough, which is why it imports 1,459 MW, but for consumption peak hours in the morning or evening, imports exceed 2,300 and even 2,500 MW, Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja on Tuesday told a specialist conference, inform agerpres.ro.

"Everything is energy and energy is everything! It is the heart of economic competitiveness. This is probably the most important conclusion of the Draghi report, the first fair acknowledgement that Europe has a huge competitiveness issue which is directly related to the energy price, which is about three times higher than in the United States, in China and other markets where we compete. Today, Romania simply does not have enough energy. If we look on Transelectrica's website, we see that the active power consumption is 7,181 MW, while the domestic output is 5,722 MW. So we are now importing 1,459 MW, and during peak consumption in the morning or especially in the evening, imports exceed 2,300 or even 2,500 MW," Burduja told the 1 2th Energy Forum: 2025 - The Year of Major Challenges, organized by DC Media Group.

"Why did we end up hunting every megawatt this year? Because of investment idleness in the energy sector, and we have to say this clearly, without putting the blame on the difficult legacy. This is the crude reality. Whereas compared to 1989 we have lost half of our continuous production capacity without putting much in place apart from a wave of renewable energy until 2012, I think that this surely is the explanation for our situation today, the main explanation. There is also another one - and I didn't hide the fact that at the recent meeting of the EU Energy ministers I raised the issue of price differences between Western Europe and Eastern Europe," Burduja noted, adding that "Romania's energy price is double compared to Austria's, for example. Why is this so? Because a completely absurd situation was allowed for years. In a single European market, that should have been interconnected in theory, certain neighboring EU states have no kind of interconnection at all. Austria and Slovakia, two countries in the middle of the European Union, and which should ensure the transit of cheaper energy from the west to the east, are just stand-alone. (...) It's true, there have been periods when energy was cheaper in the east and western Europe incurred losses because it could not import cheaper energy from the east," Burduja said.

He emphasized that in its capacity as an EU member, Romania has duly done everything it was asked and that paradoxically, that's why it ended up depending on imports over certain time intervals.

According to him, technical discussions are underway with European Commission representatives, with requests tabled for a clear analysis of the existing infrastructure, as well as "for a clearly assumed plan to speed up interconnections, with clear targets for each individual state."

"We had a common-sense request to have not only obligations, but also the same rights on the integrated energy market," the minister concluded.

(Fluierul)