VIDEO Bolojan wants to “deworm” an important field in the energy sector: “90% of projects are speculative and block serious investors”
Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan declared, on Wednesday, that by the end of the month a new regulation will be adopted regarding the rules for connection to the electricity networks, drawing attention to the fact that “under 10%” of the projects for which technical approvals for connection (ATR) were issued have actually advanced, while the remaining 90% “are of a speculative nature”.
According to the prime minister, until this spring, ATRs were issued for projects of 80,000 megawatts, although the Romanian economy needs a daily power of only about 9,000 megawatts.
“Most of these technical approvals for connection were issued in the last three years (…). We find that less than 10% of them have advanced. This means that 90% of these projects are of a speculative nature. Those who obtained these projects do not intend to develop them, but aim to sell them. They would not be viable anyway, because, exceeding our consumption many times, you have no one to sell this hypothetical energy to, maybe we could also supply Europe Central, but it effectively blocks the access of serious investors, who have financing and cannot connect”, said Ilie Bolojan.
HotNews revealed in 2024 that one of the most famous businesses done this way was that of Mihai Cristian Ciolacu, Marcel Ciolacu's nephew.
Bolojan stated that next week there will be a debate on this issue, and the Government will formulate a series of proposals to the Energy Regulatory Authority to be included in the new regulation.
The Prime Minister offers the example of Spain: “This phenomenon is totally eliminated”
Ilie Bolojan said that Spain “has unequivocal regulations and performs in the photovoltaic field”.
“She also had such a stage, 2019-2020. Finding a large number of speculative projects, they took serious measures and today this phenomenon is completely eliminated. This means that they imposed serious guarantees, for example, 40 euros per kilowatt of investment, which, if we translate into our language, we should put guarantees amounting to about 10% of the investment value, which are similar to the guarantees that builders have to to submit them,” he added.
The Liberal said that short deadlines will be imposed for the procedures and “we may have in the second half of this year and at the latest next year a number of technical approvals of connection left in the market that represent serious companies, that have funding and that we will see carried out,
“It means that, practically, our networks will be freed and we will be able to allow serious investors, who are on the Romanian market, who want to access financing made available by the Ministry of Energy and the Government or who have their own bank financing, to be able to make these investments, but for that, then, we need to practically deworm our networks of these technical connection notices, and we can do this by adopting by the end of this month this new regulation, which to solve these things”, continued the prime minister.
Ilie Bolojan also said that “it is very important for Transelectrica to have a strategy regarding Romania's needs”.
“Because we need to determine exactly where we need photovoltaics, if we need them, where we need storage, and not let some people identify a land where they can submit the project, because in this way, instead of limiting the imbalances, we complicate them even more,” he concluded.
