Interim Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said on Friday that an important long-term priority in the energy area is increasing storage capacity, both through investments in photovoltaic and wind power generation and through hydropower plants.

'One of the mistakes we have made over the years is that we have not taken measures, both through regulations and, above all, through co-financing, through policies to support the expansion of storage capacity in Romania, with the ministries that had funding programmes - the Ministry of Energy, through the Modernisation Fund, the Ministry of Environment, through the Environment Fund Administration [AFM], or the Ministry of European Projects - generally supporting photovoltaic or wind power generation, but not insisting on storage. Thus, we have a storage deficit and during this period we have taken measures for two schemes to support storage to become available for applications,' Ilie Bolojan told a news conference at the Victoria Palace.

He outlined the two support schemes, underscoring that the first results should also become visible as of 2027.

'It is about the scheme that the Ministry of Environment will finalise next week, through the AFM. There is 80 million euro available to support storage. There is also the scheme that I signed at the end of last month - and this morning we approved the funding guide, with projects to be submitted through the Modernisation Fund, where we have twice as much funding available as through the Ministry of Environment, so that only storage capacities are financed. It is true that we will only see results from 2027 onwards, because the submission, assessment and implementation of projects cannot be done overnight,' Bolojan explained.

He also mentioned the investments planned to increase storage capacity at hydropower plants.

'The discussion we had in the spring regarding the need to increase investment by state-owned companies has proved to be correct. And the request made by the Ministry of Energy, as the main shareholder in Hidroelectrica, for the investment plan for the coming years to include the hybridisation of Romania's hydropower plants. In other words, installing storage capacity, because they already have approved connection permits, have greater capacity than they produce and can do it immediately. And the fact that this decision was approved by the General Meeting of Shareholders guarantees that Hidroelectrica's management will implement it in 2027 and 2028 and we will have 1,500 megawatts of storage capacity, which, if we had it today, we could use during the evening hours,' Bolojan highlighted.

Last, but not least, he pointed out that 'speeding up the approval and commissioning of all storage facilities that are at an advanced stage of development must remain a priority, as it has been during this period, so that everything which can be completed as quickly as possible can be brought into operation and does not spend months awaiting approval between Transelectrica or other suppliers and the ANRE [National Energy Regulatory Authority].' AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Florea; EN - writing by: Rodica State)