Located in the historical space north of the Danube on the Carpathian arch or in the Carpathian-Danubian-Pontic historical space, Romania borders with various EU member states such as Romania and Bulgaria but also with Serbia, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.

With a resident population of more than 19 million, of which Bucharest alone has a population of over 2 million, Romania is a country that has aligned itself with EU principles, on several levels including the transition to greener and more sustainable energy.

Romania is crossed by the Danube in the south, providing a natural border with Bulgaria. On the territory of Romania, the Danube enters the city of Buziaș and then crosses the country from west to east so that near the city of Călărași it goes north to Galați. From Galați it goes further east and before flowing into the Black Sea, it forms a delta.

Also on the Danube to find the Iron Gates Hydropower Plants which belong to the Romanian state in co-ownership with the Serbian state and which generate an important part of the hydropower in Romania, which covers 35% of the total energy produced in Romania.

In the last 30 years corresponding to the post-socialist period, Romania has faced various reconversion processes on several levels, especially economic reconversion and deindustrialization. The same thing happened in energy, Romania reorganizing its energy production sources. An important step would be to close many of the mines in the Jiu Valley and Motru-Rovinari coal regions and encourage the installation of photovoltaic panels or wind turbines. In fact, for the year 2021 and the year 2022, wind energy has risen to the 3rd place in the top of energy production sources, while solar energy is very close and will soon overtake the nuclear means of energy production. In recent years, even biomass energy production has increased significantly, but it still has less than 10% of total energy production.

All these means of renewable energy production will increase according to the plans and predictions of the authorities, ie the Government of Romania and in this case the Ministry of Energy. For the next years, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan also provides for the elaboration of a legislative framework for hydrogen, stipulating the conditions under which this fuel can be used for energy production, for transport and other uses. Currently hydrogen is mentioned only in the law of alternative fuels.

In fact, in April 2022 there is a lot of discussion at the Government level and the offshore law that involves the exploitation of natural gas resources in the Black Sea is about to pass.

The main conclusions are that Romania has important resources for energy production from both fossil and non-fossil sources. However, we want to increase the production of energy from renewable sources, which has happened in recent years and we want to continue but at higher flows in the coming years. Furthermore, most of the energy is provided by hydroelectric power plants.

From the point of view of the transition to a cleaner and more sustainable energy, Romania has made progress in recent years and is on a good path.

Author: DanuP-2-Gas ERDF PP5 - URBASOFIA

The Danube Region holds huge potential for sustainable generation and storage of renewable energy. However, to date this region is highly dependent on energy imports, while energy efficiency, diversity and renewables share are low. In line with the EU climate targets for 2030 and the targets of the European Strategy for the Danube Region, DanuP-2-Gas supports transnational energy planning by strengthening generation and storage strategies for renewables in the Danube Region via advanced sector coupling technologies.