Wind energy - a new national company

While the projects to set up two new national energy companies - Electra and Hidroenergetica - are frozen, the Government is reviewing the possibility of setting up a third company, which would be supposed to operate in the renewable energy sector: The National Renewable Resource Company.

The draft of the Strategy called "Romania"s reindustrialization", which is at the moment put up for public debate, states that "In order to ensure renewable resources that would allow us to meet our production goals after 2010, the Romanian government could create a national company of renewable resources".

The creation of a state owned company in the field of renewable energy, is one of the solutions that economists have suggested to the Executive, to allow the durable development of the energy sector, according to the demands of the European Union.

The other two solutions proposed to the Government as part of the reindustrialization of the country are; supporting companies by acquiring licenses to explore and exploit renewable resources in other countries, or the acquisition of foreign companies that explore or use renewable energies - hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, wind, solar and biomass energy etc.

The European Union requests that by 2020, 38% of the electricity produced in Romania should come from renewable sources, and the possibility of setting up a state company that would allow the meeting of this objective is already stirring up controversy among specialists.

One of them, Nicolae Ungar, the chairman of the Professional Association of Renewable Energies "RENERG", said: "I think that the idea of setting up the National Company for Renewable Resources is a good one, but it remains to be seen how much freedom and what responsibilities this company will have, because we"ve heard plenty about strategies and projects over the last 15 years". Ungar says that the Government should quickly offer further details about this project, because in the field of renewable energy there has been "lots of talk and very little steps".

The chairman of "RENERG" considers that this company should solve the energy supply shortage in the areas with a high potential to use renewable energy: "For instance, on the seacoast, in the southern area of the Dobrogea, an area with a high wind and solar energy potential, this company could exploit these unconventional energy sources and solve the supply problems that even some of the hotels or accommodation units had in the middle of the summer season. We also have villages in the mountain areas that even today don"t have electricity".

The idea of supplying mountain villages with electricity from renewable sources, which was also proposed by the chairman of the "RENERG", comes just as the Government announced that it plans to connect all the settlements in the cpuntry to the electric grid by 2012.

Adrian Florea, the executive director of "RENERG", considers that instead of setting up a state owned company for renewable resources, the Government should focus on solving the bureaucratic difficulties that private SMEs in the sector are facing, such as the long time it takes to get their licenses, a process which can take as much as six months.

Mr. Florea said that the idea of setting up a company in the sector could be a good one, but in the end it will all depend on the way this project will be implemented.