Industrial energy consumption means you have a functioning economy, with jobs and taxes paid, but in this regard, Romania is still stagnant and I don't really understand why there isn't the political courage for the Government to come up with an assumed program of aid schemes through which to support certain industrial branches, declared on Monday, the president of the Senate's Commission for Energy, Energy Infrastructure, and Mineral Resources, Lorant Antal.
„Lately, I have been insisting very much that in the debates we have on the development of electricity generation capacity, we must not forget to talk about consumers. The map of electricity and natural gas consumption is practically a very accurate mirror of how the Romanian economy works (...) Energy consumption is a mirror of the economy, and here I am referring to industrial consumption. Where you have industrial consumption, you have a functioning economy, because it means jobs, taxes paid and so on. In this area, Romania is still standing still and I do not really understand why the government does not have the political courage to come up with a committed program (...) But before we come up with that program, let's go and stop leaving Brussels, the Commission, and put ourselves on a cushion in front of the door, if it is there or not leave at all, until we manage to reach an agreement with those there, because we still need some schemes to support certain industrial sectors. We have come up with a legislative initiative, which came from Ms. Cristina Prună (Cristina Prună, vice-chair of the Committee on Industry and Services of the Chamber of Deputies, editor's note), which concerns tax exemptions, facilitating industrial investment for those industries where natural gas will be consumed. It will now be debated in the Senate, after which it will go to the Chamber of Deputies (...) For years we have been talking about the importance of strip energy, the importance of investments in this sector and the importance of coming up with support schemes for different industrial branches”, Antal stated, according to Agerpres.
On the other hand, regarding the discussion about the large number of Technical Connection Permits (ATR), the head of the Senate Energy Committee mentioned that, normally, an ATR can be held for a maximum of 24 months.
„This sentence that Mr. Burduja (Sebastian Burduja, former Minister of Energy, editor's note) talked about, with the ATRs, and Prime Minister Bolojan (...) is indeed a problem. But with the continuation of the statement, that this is why we can't have cheaper electricity, because we have 80,000 megawatts, but half ATRs, I can half agree. Indeed, it is a problem that needs to be solved. Together with Mr. Burduja, in 2022, we made a legislative initiative, we even had debates in committee, where everybody came and we analyzed the situation. At that time we were talking about somewhere around 40,000 megawatts, ATRs given on 40,000 megawatts. We came up with the legislative initiative, after which ANRE said that they had better come up with a regulation, that the regulation would go faster. Then we said that we believe that, nevertheless, the law has the power of law, it's more ok, but in order to be faster and to come to the aid of this phenomenon, ANRE should come up with a regulation. According to my knowledge of the law, the ATR cannot normally be kept for more than 24 months. I don't know how others have managed..,” Antal emphasized.
On the other hand, it showed that building electricity production capacity is useless if there are no consumers.
„It's in vain that we want to keep building electricity generation capacity if we have nowhere to sell it, because we are not Romania, an isolated island. We are a member state of the European Union, and I think others are also building or want to build energy capacity. So, if we keep adding another 5,000 mega solar and wind farms, and we don't know what else others are adding, maybe not wind, and if we don't have consumers, we won't be able to do anything with the electricity.” explained the senator.