ROMANIA: “Plan B” for the Tarnița-Lăpuștești pumped hydro plant project: an association with the giants EdF and Itochu, interested in the design and construction of the plant

Given that the 50-year-old project of the Tarnița-Lăpuștești pumped-storage hydropower plant, at the tender level for the feasibility study organized by the state company SAPE, is not moving forward, the Minister of Energy announced a “plan B” of what called in the past “my soul project”.

The companies Itochu from Japan and EdF from France are interested in the Tarniţa-Lăpuşteşti pumped-storage hydropower plant project and are willing to carry out the feasibility study at their own expense, and then carry out the design and execution of the plant to the end, announced the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja.

“We implement plan B, because we always have a backup plan. These very days we continued discussions with strategic partners from Japan and France, the consortium formed by Itochu-EDF, two global energy giants. EDF is the most important utility company in Europe, which produces over 16% of the electricity in the European Union. EDF is the largest operator of nuclear assets in the world, with approximately 180,000 employees. Itochu, the Japanese giant, has total revenues of almost USD 90 billion, which is 28% of Romania’s GDP. The two big companies are interested in the project (Tarniţa Lăpuşteşti, n.r.) and willing to realize the SF with their own money, and then to complete the design and execution of the plant. A large-scale project needs serious, stable, reliable partners who have proven that they know and can implement large projects. As Tarniţa-Lăpuşteşti is for our country”, the minister wrote, on Tuesday evening, on his Facebook page.

He reaffirmed that Tarniţa-Lăpustești is the most important project for the Romanian energy system, 50 years old, ignored and passed over from one year to the next, although it contributes substantially to the security of the energy system, at fair prices and, not least in turn, to clean energy production and large-scale storage.

Burduja specified, in the context, that at the beginning of his mandate, he took the project out of the drawer and mandated the management of SAPE to start the tender for the feasibility study (SF). The Minister of Energy emphasized, however, that after a year no progress has been made.

“SAPE is the Romanian state company that administers the participations in energy and to which I gave all my trust and support in completing the first stage of the project, namely the awarding of SF. After a year, I can see that no progress has been made and that we are at the same point, SAPE failing to close the tender for the award of the SF. I don’t give up even when I break my head. This project will see the light of day. With me or without me minister. Because Romania and Romania’s energy don’t have time to wait, and ministerial mandates are not about one person or another, but about the future of this country and future generations,” Sebastian Burduja said on social media.

In the summer of this year, SAPE announced that two companies submitted bids in the tender procedure for the realization of the “Feasibility Study and Technical-Economic Documentation related to the investment objective Hydroelectric Power Plant with Accumulation by Pumping (CHEAP) Tarniţa – Lăpuşteşti”.

“The submission of offers for the feasibility study marks a crucial moment for the development of the Tarniţa hydropower plant. The SAPE team will carefully evaluate these offers to ensure compliance with legal requirements and to successfully advance this project of vital importance for Romania’s energy security. Submitting the offers for the feasibility study represents the first step, but with this, we can say that, officially, the construction of the Tarniţa hydropower plant has started. We are proud to be involved in a project of such scope and responsibility”, said the president of the SAPE Directorate, Bogdan Nicolae Stănescu, quoted in the press release of June 18.

According to SAPE, the construction and operation of the Tarniţa – Lăpustești pumped storage hydropower plant has many advantages: it improves the operation regime of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant, especially in the perspective of building Units 3 and 4, but also of fossil fuel thermoelectric plants, by transferring electrical energy from idle to peak load; participates in frequency-power regulation; ensures rapid tertiary reserve; ensures the short-term breakdown reserve; ensures optimal conditions for the operation of intermittent renewable power plants; provides reactive power and operation in compensatory mode, ensuring compliance with electricity quality standards; improves the participation of the SEN in the single European electricity market, increasing the degree of safety on the SEN as a whole and increases the possibility of operating the SEN in superior technical and economic conditions.

The Tarniţa-Lăpuşteşti project is located 30 kilometers from Cluj-Napoca, on Someş. It was initially thought of in 1979, and it involves a 1,000 MW hydropower plant with pumps.

The construction of the plant is estimated at one billion euros, roughly now.