Energy policy

Bucharest, Oct 16 /Agerpres/ - Romania can become the largest gas producer in the European Union, which gives it security and independence, but also positions it as an important negotiation partner at European and global level, the Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister, Ramona Manescu, said on Wednesday, at the third edition of the Aspen Energy Summit 2019.

Slovenia plans to expand the nuclear power plant it jointly owns with Croatia - but the risks and benefits of nuclear power, and whether Croatia will continue to cooperate, remain big questions.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced on Monday that is has agreed to lend 21.1 million euro to support the thermal insulation of 400 residential buildings in Sector 2 of Bucharest, a release of the international financial institution informed.

Investors in renewable energy sources are facing fresh obstacles at a time when the government is setting the development of the sector as a priority, with the Energy Ministry shifting its target regarding the share of RES in total energy production in 2030 from 31 percent, as provided for in the National Plan for Energy and the Climate, to 35 percent in the revised blueprint.

In 2017 the European Union (EU) relied on net imports for 87% of its oil consumption. This ratio, known as the oil import dependency rate, is unchanged from 2016 and two percentage points below the peak of 89% recorded in 2015, Eurostat reported.

Gazprom expects the volume of gas exports to Europe to be reduced this year to the level of 2017 - up to 192 billion cubic meters, with the export price estimated to be 13% lower than in 2018. This was announced by Gazprom Export Head Mikhail Malgin.

Dr. Nevenka Hrovatin, Professor of Economics at University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Economics, reveals the main challenges in energy markets and highlights the best practices from both Slovenia and the region while emphasizing that Slovenia should increase its ambition in the heating and cooling sector.

Romania's primary energy supply increased by 1.0pct, while electricity supply declined 4.5pct, both in the first five months of 2019, year-over-year, according to data published on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The main primary energy supply January 1 - May 31, 2019 totalled 14.406 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe), up 147,100 toe from the same period of 2018.

In this impoverished, struggling country, there is wealth lying just about everywhere you look, and yet no one is earning a cent from it. Even the most obvious no-brainer - solar thermal energy - is found on rooftops only sporadically in the north and not at all in the south. The contrast to Italy and Greece, where rooftop solar thermal systems are common, is glaring.

Greece could become a power accumulator for Europe and support its energy independence through the necessary investment in renewable energy sources (RES), the secretary-general of the Hellenic Wind Energy Association (ELETAEN), Panayiotis Papastamatiou, stated on Tuesday, adding that "meeting the 2030 target for 55 percent of power coming from RES, we require investments of 17 billion euros."