Romania and the Republic of Moldova have approached the European Commission with a joint request for a temporary exemption from the obligation to purchase CO2 emission certificates for electricity produced from natural gas and coal and exported to Moldova. Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja mentioned this, reports IPN with reference to the Romanian press.
The information was also confirmed to IPN by representatives of the Chisinau government.
The request concerns Romanian producers OMV Petrom and Complexul Energetic Oltenia. "The problem is the price, because when your production is based on gas, and even more so on coal, the price is much higher because of the CO2 certificates", Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja said.
"We addressed the European Commission, the energy commissioner, the environment commissioner, both myself and Prime Minister Recean, who wrote to the Commission, and asked them for a temporary exemption from the payment of these CO2 certificates, which simply double the price of electricity from around 400-500 lei MWh to over 1,000 lei MWh", the Romanian energy minister added.
The exemption from paying for carbon certificates would help the Moldovan government to bear this cost, the Romanian official noted.
The Moldovan trader Energocom has already signed a bilateral contract with Nuclearelectrica for the delivery of 100 MW of energy and, according to Chisinau, talks are ongoing with OMV Petrom to deliver 100 MW from the Brazi gas-fired power plant and with Complex Energetic Oltenia for another 100-200 MW from the lignite-fired power plants.
