European Union support schemes will drive a surge in renewable energy projects in Romania to replace outdated coal-fired power plants and help the country meet its climate targets, Energy Minister Virgil Popescu said.
Separately, he gave a time-scale for new nuclear units, with the help of U.S. funding, to further curb Romania's use of polluting fossil fuel in the longer term.
Romania estimates it could receive at least 16 billion euros in EU recovery and modernisation funds by 2030 to upgrade its energy sector.The country will use a first 460 million euro tranche to provide up to 50% of the capital expenditure needed to fund the winning projects in a tender launched in March to provide 950 megawatts of renewable energy.
"I expect many companies to apply, including industrial consumers which will use the energy for their own consumption," Popescu told Reuters in an interview. "The advantages are two-fold: their energy costs go down and demand on the power network eases and prices go lower." In addition to the energy sector, Popescu said large industrial consumers, such as carmakers Dacia, owned by France's Renault