National Energy Dispatch's data show electricity storage demand is 4,000 MW
According to the data provided by the National Energy Dispatch, the demand for electricity storage is 4,000 MW until 2030, half of which will come from batteries and half from pumped storage hydropower plants, the minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja declared on Friday.
According to the minister, Romania must do what it should have done for decades, namely pumped storage hydropower plants, because "we are the only country in the EU with the geography that allows such investments and that was not able to carry after all, such a hydroelectric plant. It is much more useful than a field of batteries. Much more useful because it stores energy for a much longer period and is much friendlier to the environment. (...) That is why I and the Council of ministers in Brussels always say: give us a favorable framework for pumped storage hydropower plants through which we can speed up, on the one hand, the environmental approval procedures, and on the other hand, we can access more financing because they are expensive projects and there are projects that cannot be done overnight."
As to the pumped-storage hydropower plant project from Tarnita-Lapustesti, he mentioned that the feasibility study procedure is underway and if this fails, a public-private partnership option will be used.
"In the public-private partnership, there are big partners, with some of them I have met, they could enter from this moment. We do not have a feasibility study, they assume part of the costs and then when you have the study, the shares in the shareholding structure are renegotiated. But we have no way to give up this investment," said Sebastian Burduja.