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Minister Popescu: We need support to finance passing from coal to renewable resources
Romania needs support to shift from production of electricity based on coal to that from renewable sources, such as natural gas, said Virgil Popescu, the minister of Economy, Energy and Business Environment.
“In the energy sector we speak about the national plan in the energy and climate change field which we forwarded to the European Commission and here we speak about the very ambitious renewable energy targets of 30.7%. In order to get here we must see where we are and we are speaking about an electricity production based on coal of 25% of energy mix. So we cannot say we can remove coal without replacing it with something else. We need a transition fuel. Natural gas is a transition fuel and here we need support to finance the passage from coal to renewables by means of natural gas. At present we have only one sure financing source and we are talking about the modernization fund created through the sale of CO2 certificates. We request support to be able to finance the production and distribution of electric energy with natural gas as fuel through the national plan of resilience. It is very important for us to reach our targets to be able to finance natural gas,” Popescu explained at the meeting of the presidency of the EPP group.
The minister reiterated that another important direction in the field of energy mixing was nuclear energy and the increase of production capacity in that sector.
“We are glad that nuclear energy has not been declared dirty energy. It is still neutral energy. We consider we do not have CO2 emissions. It is true that good solutions should be found for nuclear waste deposits. We want to continue building reactors 3 and 4 and reach an energy mix with low CO2 emissions,” the minister added.
He mentioned there is a very ambitious restructuring plan for Oltenia Energy Complex analyzed by the European Commission which shows that a company with natural energy mixture, should be created from an electricity producing company based on coal.
“We want a market interconnected at European level. In the field of natural gas transport we must diversify supply sources and I think that Romania, as a natural gas producer, can be a player in the field. I would like BRUA to continue its path to Austria, and I would also like that the interconnection with Greece and Bulgaria should be done as soon as possible so that the vertical corridor could bring Aserian gas and LNG from Greek ports to Europe,” the minister mentioned.