Climate won’t suffer if Romanian coal power plants keep running – energy minister

The Romanian government is in talks on postponing the coal power plant closures envisaged under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), according to Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan. The current deadline for decommissioning these plants is the end of 2025, but Romania is hoping to push it back to 2030.

Ivan noted that Romania’s gas and coal power generation has dropped by 56% over the past decade, with around 7,000 MW of capacity closed and only 1,200 MW replaced.

“Now I am convinced that the world’s climate will not suffer so much if Romania continues to keep its coal-fired power plants in the Jiu Valley,” the minister said, according to Profit.ro.

Ivan: Keeping the Jiu Valley coal power plants operational will not hurt the global climate

He also stressed that Romania has pursued the most aggressive decarbonization policy in the European Union, choosing 2025 as a deadline to eliminate coal-fired electricity generation, compared to Poland or Germany, which intend to use coal until 2040–2050.

Ivan explained that wind and solar capacity in Romania has been growing, but that the country needs more battery storage to better utilize its output.

Romania needs more battery storage for the growing wind and solar capacities

Romania’s former energy minister, Sebastian Burduja, said earlier this year that the country intended to extend the operation of coal-fired power plants because there was no other option to ensure energy security and replace existing capacities.

He said in January that the operating period of coal-fired power plants was expected to be extended by three years.

According to earlier reports, Romania intends to stop coal mining by 2032 at the latest, while replacing conventional power plants in the meantime. Romania’s largest producer of coal-based electricity is state-owned power utility CE Oltenia, based in Târgu Jiu. It is also the country’s third-largest producer of electricity.