Hidroelectrica wants to partner with the French giant EDF for the Tarnița hydropower plant, a half-century-old project
Tarnita Project, Photo: Government
The shareholders of the state company Hidroelectrica will meet in a meeting on January 27 to approve the establishment of a joint company with the French company EDF Power Solutions International. Hidroelectrica and EDF will have equal shares in the joint venture. The EDF Group, with a turnover of 118.7 billion euros in 2024, is one of the largest producers and suppliers of electricity in the world, based in France.
EDF Power Solutions International is the global division of the French group EDF specialized in renewable energy solutions and energy transition.
Hidroelectrica had a turnover of 1.8 billion euros in 2024.
The joint company “will be established by the parties in order to develop the Hydroelectric Power Plant with Accumulation by Pumping (CHEAP) Tarnița – Proposed Investment/Opportunity”, according to the notice of the General Meeting of Shareholders sent to BVB.
Tarnița- Lăpuștești, a project rolled from one government to another
The 50-year-old project regarding the construction of the Tarniţa-Lăpuşteşti pumped-storage hydropower plant was rolled from one government to another.
The project suffered failure after failure after several cancellations, reruns and extensions of tenders for a new feasibility study.
The former energy minister Sebastian Burduja said about it that it is the “soul project”.
Over the years, more than 5 million euros have been spent on studies and study updates for this project, according to the estimates of some specialists in the energy field.
In 2013, a project company was established. In 2015, five Chinese companies reportedly expressed interest in the project, and three of them passed the pre-qualification stage, but any discussion stalled here.
The project was suspended in 2016, but was revived in 2017 by the then government and introduced in subsequent government programs. In 2020, former energy minister Virgil Popescu said that the project will be removed from the energy strategy because it is not economically justified. However, even then the project did not completely disappear, because a year later, four Korean companies would have shown interest in the investment. This time too, the talks were not successful.
Project revived immediately after the dissolution of the old project company
In 2023, former minister Burduja took the Tarnița – Lăpuștești project out of the drawer, declared it a priority and made it the “soul project” immediately after the Hidro-Tarnița project company was dissolved.
The project company was dissolved at the beginning in July 2023, because it did not produce anything, could not be financed in any way, and no investor was found for the construction of the Tarnița-Lăpuştesti Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant, according to a response to HotNews.ro from the Societătă de Administrare a Participații în Energie (SAPE), as the majority shareholder.
Since 2024, after several attempts to organize a tender, the project has once again entered a shadow cone.
