​Renewable energy is energy that cannot be used without balancing, and for that we need gas stations, says Marian Nestase, President of the Board of Directors of Alro Slatina. He criticized the fact that at the level of the European Commission, gas projects are not considered a priority and all emphasis is placed on green energy. “It’s cold in the institutions of the European Commission, those in Brussels walk around in their jackets. It’s fashionable, but I can tell them how it was under communism, when we had electricity for two hours a day,” he said.

Gas is the only solution by which we can achieve our decarbonisation goals in 2050, at least for Europe, Nestase said at the Natural Gas Forum organized by Financial Intelligence.

“They say that Romania managed to reduce energy consumption. No, Romania has not achieved anything. The country’s energy consumption decreased due to the reduction of industrial production. This means that we pay less taxes to the state budget. We’ve shut down capacity, we’ve deindustrialized, thankfully not fundamentally, I mean we know it’s a crisis and we’re waiting to get through it.

But consumption has decreased because everyone is running at reduced capacity or has shut down. But this is not a situation that can last: either the industry closes completely, then we put a big rock on it – we can do it with violinists, it stays buried, or we find solutions to keep these capacities because people work there.” , – he noted.

Even if prices are lower than last year, they are three times higher than at the beginning of the crisis.

Aluminum producer Alro Slatina is the largest energy consumer in Romania and is involved with Oltenia Energy Complex in the construction project of an 850 MW gas-fired power plant in Išalnica.

“We have been hearing for 20 years that we will be an energy hub. So many strategies have been made but none have been implemented. What does it mean to be an energy center? Energy must be affordable, Energy Dispatcher no longer has to worry about counties being left in the dark, and it must be cheap, we no longer have to fear that tomorrow we will shut down and leave our industry,” added the Alro representative. .

He reminded that Romanians went through communism and remember what it means not to have electricity and to stay in the cold.

“I got a cold because I’m cold. We had to lower the temperature in the house to 18 degrees. I have also been to Brussels, to all the institutions of the European Commission, and it is cold there. Those from Brussels were sitting in jackets. I can tell them how we were under communism, we remember how we sat in the cold and had light for two hours a day. Now it’s fashionable, for a year or two, the younger generation comes and thinks it’s fashionable, but you can’t sit in the cold all the time. You have a newborn baby, you can’t keep him in the cold, what do we do?”.

Photo source: Dreamstime