THE "ENERGY PLUGGED IN" CONFERENCE, 2ND EDITION / LAURENŢIU CIUREL, COMPLEXUL ENERGETIC OLTENIA: "We may not have even a single thermoelectric plant next year"

Romania has coal reserves for another 30-40 years, but we have a low quality lignite, which isn't profitable to process, says Laurenţiu Ciurel, executive CEO of the Oltenia Energy Complex, who warned that the company is having serious trouble entering the market.

In that regard, he said that the Oltenia Energy Complex has completed the modernization of all the hydroelectric plants that it operates in Oltenia, but it no longer has a market because of the competition from renewable energy, as well as the high costs of CO2 emissions certificates.

"We have completed the modernization of the plants, but we no longer have a market, because Romania currently has 15,000 MW that can be operational, of which 6,000 are renewable, 6,000 are hydroelectric and 1,400 are nuclear", said Laurenţiu Ciurel. "We have to find all kinds of export channels, combine all kinds of energies. After we have invested into fulfilling all the environmental requirements of the EU, we now find ourselves in the situation where we are unable to pay for our CO2 emissions certificates".

Mr. Ciurel considers that coal-based energy producers must be integrated in an energy mix, as is happening all over Europe, as this is, according to him, "the only viable solution" for the sector he represents. "If this doesn't happen, there is an ever increasing likelihood that next year, the complex will not even have one operational thermoelectric plant", he warned.

According to Mr. Ciurel, Romanian energy producers are organized according to types of resources and they have come to the point where they are "cannibalizing" each other, amid the drop in the prices of energy and consumption. Laurenţiu Ciurel says that CEO produces the cheapest lignite-based energy in Europe.

In his opinion, the Romanian authorities must start paying close attention to the structures of the price of energy that reaches end users, which, paradoxically, grows even though the producers' tariffs have fallen lately.