Ondrej Safar, CEO CEZ Romania: “Decentralization will be a game changer in the energy sector”

“Looking back at the last 10 years, Romania has made a great progress in the energy sector. Romania is much better connected to the rest of European markets from the commercial perspective and from the trading perspective. Now it’s much easier to trade electricity across border than it was 10 years ago which is contributing positively to the energy security of the country. From the perspective of generation, Romania became a net importer, but renewables are now a significant part of the energy mix,” Ondrej Safar, CEO CEZ Romania said during the Energy CEO Forum 2021 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We are now discussing about the next period, about the target of renewables and how challenging it is going to be. There will be a lot of discussions, there will be a lot of issues to be resolved, but it will be achievable. A big issue will be to replace the classical power plants which are getting older, but Romania is not only country in Europe in this position.

We have more and more prosumers connecting to our grids. This is a positive change in the energy sector. We need to look at changes from a positive perspective and try to find solutions as we did before.

Decentralization will happen very soon and will be a game changer in the energy sector. Customers will start to generate, everything we are doing now will have to change. We are working to absorb this change and to be able to manage it in real time. Digitalization is the enabler for the decentralization, is the condition for us to manage the grids. It will completely change the energy flow and it will something very different.

From the decarbonization perspective, we see two main directions in our field of activity. We are generating from renewable, and of the disadvantage is the unpredictability. For the future we need to develop and improve our renewable sources in order to be more predictable, more stable.”

The CEO Forum brings together the decision makers at the Governmental level and civil society and C-level business leaders in the energy sector. The Forum joins on the same stage senior figures, experts and the most knowns specialists in the field, to discuss some of the most pressing aspects of the industry today.

SPEAKERS  | CEO FORUM:

CORINA POPESCU, CEO Electrica

ERIC STAB, Chairman & CEO, ENGIE Romania

MIHAI DRAGHICI, Senior Manager, Business Advisory, EY

STEFAN GADOLA, Director General, EnergoBit

RAZVAN COPOIU, CEO Signify Romania

CORNELIU BODEA, CEO Adrem & President, Romanian Energy Center (CRE)

ONDREJ SAFAR, CEO CEZ Romania

VALERIU BINIG, Director, Regulatory and Antitrust, ENEL