Energy communities can be the solution to the gap between low energy consumption in the industrial sector and high consumption in the residential segment. To achieve this goal, Romania should use European technology that is both of good quality and affordable, said Mihaela Coroiu, Director – Sustainable Energy Projects / Marketing Strategy at EnergoBit, at the conference “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency – Cluj-Napoca” organised by Energynomics and the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Romania – CCIpR.
“We are at a point where, because of budgetary constraints, we are seeing a lot of cheap technology being planned for investment, regardless of where it comes from – Asia or other parts of the world. I know that credible technology with good performance is much easier to exploit and any bank or financier trusts good quality technology. Good and affordable technology is being developed in the EU,” said Coroiu, urging the use of good European technologies over technologies that are simply cheap.
Large companies invest in energy efficiency projects because they have the necessary funds, but in the rest of the Romanian economy the quality of energy efficiency investments depends on the financial capabilities of the companies. For these companies, grants and non-reimbursable financing play a key role.
“Most of the market is investing in those types of projects that are supported with grants, and we’ve seen some very serious development on the PV side. Which is not necessarily wrong, it’s just that we’re now seeing claims that prosumers are endangering the balance of the national energy system. If we looked at the investment in its complexity, as an energy sustainable project, we would have seen that for these PV producers who have no consumption at the time of production, there would be a need for storage, either in hot water or in batteries, depending on the consumption behavior. Talking about decarburization, we have to look at how we consume and what consumers need,” our colleague continued.
Romania has a low industrial energy consumption, which is expected to recover by 2027. On the other hand, residential consumption remains as high as in the past, which means that the same challenges of ten years ago persist. Specifically, systems are not energy efficient – thermal insulation is not satisfactory, distribution losses remain high, and installations are oversized.
One way out of this problem could be energy communities, but there aren’t any “way forward” regulations in place yet to make them happen. On the other hand, the fact that there are no laws in this area can be a good thing because there are no legal barriers. Coroiu says that these towns could be a great example of how the government and businesses can work together.
“An energy community can exist at the level of a building, a house, or even at the level of a municipality or neighborhood. The more diverse the community’s energy sources are, the less dependent that community is on the National Energy System (SEN),” she added.
In the language of engineers, energy efficiency means energy sustainability, which includes not only electricity but also heat. In addition to reducing losses and generating clean energy, another means of achieving sustainability is to use digitalization as an energy-saving tool.
“Any advanced energy management system can do those maneuvers that a human would do. Already, now, the technologies are not so expensive that they don’t justify the investment,” Coroiu said.
In her view, following the sustainability route, even those consumers who cannot afford to make the necessary investments should be supported because, in the end, they too will contribute to achieving energy efficiency targets.