Romania negotiating with European Commission five-year delay in closure of coal-fired power plants

Romania is negotiating with the European Commission an extension by five years of the deadline for the closure of coal-fired power plants because otherwise we will be in a very difficult situation from an energy point of view, Romania's Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan said on Thursday."I am bidding for gas-fired power plants, which will replace the coal-fired power plants, which we will put in conservation, not close them. I don't want to close them, to be very clear. Strategically, I want to continue to have them in conservation, after they will no longer inject directly into the energy system for unforeseen situations. At the moment we are preparing two auctions. By September 15, the offers will be submitted, I hope, because so far there is not a great appetite in this direction and, at the same time, together with the Minister of European Funds, we are negotiating with the European Commission an extension of the deadline, because it is impossible to stop the groups of coal-fired power plants, because we will also be in a very difficult energy situation and such discussion is out of question. I am very confident that, together with the minister of European funds, we will succeed in convincing them to keep these groups active for another five years," Ivan told Antena 3 private broadcaster.The minister admitted that Romania must close coal-fired power plants by December 31, 2025, "otherwise, we miss milestone 119 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR)", with "a stinging penalty, of almost EUR 2 billion.""I am doing everything in my power to negotiate with very clear arguments, because for many years we have only sent promises. I want to show, and I took each project in the PNRR to the letter, with each beneficiary, with a diagram, with physical and financial progress until August 2026, in which everyone pledge what they do and when they do. On this chapter, I negotiate with them directly. We will not close the coal-fired power plants in the Jiu Valley under any circumstances (...) When you go with arguments, when you go with very clear data, when you go with very clear assumptions and you show that you have done something measurable and quantifiable, you have an argument for which they believe you (...) I believe very much in serious people both in Romania and in the European Commission, who will understand that the subject of closing coal-fired power plants is not a joke (...) We have all the studies, we have impact studies on the national energy grid and we need the energy produced by those groups and not just by December 2025 and three more, plus another 3, 5 years from now."Ivan added that in order to introduce 1,400 megawatts into the system with the help of gas-fired power plants, it would take at least 22 months, "in the best case" and "with margins of error"."We are going in two and a half to three years. We are just at the stage where we are launching public tenders for those investments. We have to be realistic. I am very fair with them, with those from the Commission when I've presented them with all these data and told them that we need to find a solution," Ivan also said.