Acting InvestMin Pislaru: Government had no plans to shut down other coal-based production capacities

  The Government had no plans to shut down additional coal-based energy production capacities, and the amendments adopted by the Senate on decarbonisation do not address a real need, interim Minister of Investments and European Projects Dragos Pislaru said."We are reading the text of the amendments: 'No coal capacity should be shut down until we have something based on gas.' It sounds good. The question is: was there any risk that the Government, especially an interim one, would shut down any coal capacity in the coming period? The answer is no. There was not. The Prime Minister has publicly said that we prepared a study from Transelectrica to explain to the Commission that we can no longer shut down any other unit. It was publicly stated that we cannot include Craiova on the decarbonisation list for this year, because the city's energy and heating supply and Ford depend on it," Pislaru said on Wednesday in an interview with Digi24 private television station.According to the minister, Romanian authorities had been in discussions with the European Commission for some time regarding the continued operation of certain coal-based production capacities."So, the situation is as follows: personally, I discussed with the European Commission that, for the last closures we had forecast, of 710 MW, we would not be able to shut down those capacities. These were discussions that lasted for months, also involving Bogdan Ivan, the former Energy Minister. There was no possibility of shutting down anything else," he said.The amendment adopted by the Senate was not justified, as there was no intention to shut down any other energy units, he argued.The Senate adopted on Tuesday the legislative proposal on the decarbonisation of the energy sector, introducing a Social Democratic Party (PSD) amendment stipulating that the gradual phase-out of lignite- and hard coal-based electricity production capacities may only take place after the construction and commissioning of new similar energy capacities.The bill includes several exceptions allowing the commissioning of new lignite- or hard coal-based electricity generation capacities in cases such as the creation of lignite, anthracite, peat or hard coal reserves for mobilisation and wartime purposes, in order to prepare, secure and organise the energy resources needed in the event of a state of emergency or siege, and to prevent and counter threats to Romania's national sovereignty.(Photo:https://www.facebook.com/)