The only explanation for this is an economic stagnation. Moreover, from a traditional exporter of power, Romania turned into an importer last year and thus one of the most pessimistic scenarios for the energy sector happened.
“The year 2012 was a year of extreme temperatures, which exceed in absolute value and frequency those in 2011 by far. These temperatures should have generated an increase in consumption on 2011. The conclusions that can be drawn show a stagnating economy,” explain the officials of national grid company Transelectrica.
The preliminary data of Transelectrica show gross domestic power consumption amounted to 59.28 TWh, instead of the 60 TWh of 2011, which means it was down about 1.25%.
Analyzing power consumpton is important because this is indicative of the performance of a specific economy. Most often economic growth is power hungry, while recession comes with lower need for energy. The problem is the 2012 decline comes after Romania’s appetite had slightly increased in 2011.
This is not the only news that should be cause for some concern. Transelectrica data show Romania had to resort to electricity imports in 2012 to meet domestic demand. Whereas it exported 1.9 TWh in 2011, last year it imported 0.2 GWh. Calculated at the spot prices of the OPCOM market, Romania’s exports amounted to almost EUR100 million in 2011 and its imports stood at EUR12.3 million.
A number of factors created this situation. Hidroelectrica, a company that would normally generate one third of the total electricity of the country, experienced its second year of drought in a row, so its output hit bottom, only 12 TWh.
The nuclear power plant in Cernavoda (SE Romania) did not help much, either, as its output was 2.4% lower in the first 11 months of 2012 on the year-earlier period. The decline was probably caused by a temporary shutdown of Reactor 1 for maintenance works for 45 days in May and June.
Wind farms partly offset the electricity production decline, as they doubled their contribution to the system. However, most of Romania’s electricity is still coming from thermoelectric power plants running on coal (40% of production) and gas (17.5% of production).
That Romania ended up importing power could also be looked at from a different angle. The country’s energy system has been neglected for more than twenty years when it comes to investments in new power generation facilities and needs more than EUR40 billion today.
About 80% of its thermoelectric power plants are past their service life 31% of the hydropower plants need to be replaced, 65% of the power distribution networks shows significant wear, the natural gas transmission network is 60% past its service life, too. These are the data in Romania’s Energy Strategy for 2011-2035, still a work in progress, and the only strategy enacted dates back to 2007.
There was no shortage of projects, such as Reactors 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda plant, the Tarnita-Lapusesti hydropower plant (NW Romania), new thermoelectric power plants but none of them was implemented.
The only projects that did materialize were implemented by foreign investors. OMV Petrom, the largest local company inaugurated a 860 MW power plant running on gas after a EUR530 million investment. This is the only such facility built from scratch in the last two decades. Wind farms were another sector that saw a lot of progress, with investors spending about EUR3 billion.
As for this year’s power consumption, Transelectrica officials stated they could not say for sure whether it would increase or not in 2013, but considering the state of the economy, the increase or decline cannot be higher than 1% or 2%.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)