In a meeting with representatives of the main power generation companies in the country, Romanian prime minister Nicolae Ciuca and minister of energy Virgil Popescu reviewed the options for increasing the installed generation capacity in the short term, until next year.

Thus, the coal and power group CE Oltenia will increase the operating capacity by 300 MW, and Romgaz will complete the gas-fired power plant at Iernut (210 MW) that was supposed to be ready years ago, Hotnews.ro reported.

Separately, the investments in the hydropower generation units will result in 200 MW supplementary generation capacities, the Government’s officials estimate without explaining whether this would be achieved by upgrading the existing hydropower plants or by commissioning new ones.

At the same time, the Government assures that it will speed up the investment plans financed under the Modernization Fund for the development of energy production capacities, including from renewable sources.

Thus, since the beginning of this year, CE Oltenia has submitted projects worth EUR 1.4 bln, of which EUR 895 mln is to be financed under the Modernization Fund. Another EUR 400 mln will be allocated to projects submitted by power transport company Transelectrica.

This month, calls for energy projects worth EUR 960 mln will be launched, which will generate an additional 260 MW of installed generation capacity.

From the Modernization Fund, another EUR 2.8 bln will be made available this autumn for the development of energy production capacities.

The Modernisation Fund is a dedicated funding programme to support 10 lower-income EU Member States in their transition to climate neutrality by helping to modernise their energy systems and improve energy efficiency. The beneficiary Member States are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

andrei@romania-insider.com

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