We are working on a ‘peak shaving’ mechanism that can act as a factor in reducing prices when they are very high – Niculescu, ANRE
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The National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE) is working on a ‘peak shaving’ mechanism on the regulatory side, as a way to reduce prices when they are very high, with the draft project to be presented to the European Commission, the institution’s president, George-Sergiu Niculescu, said on Thursday at the ZF Power Summit.
“On the regulatory side, you should know that we are working on a ‘peak shaving’ mechanism – I am telling you this for the first time – which I want to present to the specialists from the European Commission, which can act as a new factor for reducing prices when they are very high, at peaks, that is why it is called ‘peak shaving’. It is not something new, but it is something that has not been implemented in Romania, which colleagues from the authority have worked on. We have a draft regulatory project in this regard. I would like to and have taken steps to have a meeting with the European Commissioner, in order to present this draft regulation to him.
It can be a solution for the entire region where we are, because this situation is not only Romania. The same problems are faced by our colleagues in Hungary, as well as by those in Bulgaria and Greece, so basically the entire southeast area. You know very well about the limitation of interconnection in Austria (…) energy circulates less in that interconnection area and that is why we see large price fluctuations in this area. So, from a regulatory point of view, we have prepared a draft regulation that we want to propose and approach in the most transparent and rapid way possible in the coming period, and in the long term, I repeat, the healthy solution is investments”, he stated.
The head of ANRE emphasized that, in the long term, the solution for lowering energy prices is the production of more energy in the band, basically investments.
“More energy produced in the band, obviously, is the answer. That is why I want to see rapid progress in the construction of electricity capacities that can produce in the grid. The Iernut project is very important, the Mintia plant as well, 1,700 megawatts in the grid that will solve one of the problems that you raised and let’s not forget the continuation and investment of maximum effort in continuing the nuclear program in Romania, both for the construction of Reactors 3 and 4, and for the Doiceşti project. In addition to this, I was talking during my intervention about new storage capacities, which, in practice, will delay the delivery of production to the network when the price is low and will do so when the price is high, in order to extinguish this price inflation”, Niculescu argued.
The President of the National Energy Regulatory Authority, George-Sergiu Niculescu, on Thursday, at the ZF Power Summit, an event dedicated exclusively to the energy market, which has reached its 14th edition this year.
