Karoly Borbely, Hidroelectrica: “Romania needs an integrated vision for the energy sector”

“I welcome the efforts of the Ministry of Energy to debate and update the Energy Strategy. It is incredible how a country like Romania, with extraordinary energy resources, does not have an updated strategy and we always find ourselves faced with a situation, let’s say, quite interesting, what is happening now in the energy markets, and we don’t have a very clear vision, although we have resources, we have strong companies,” Karoly Borbely, CEO of Hidroelectrica said during Energy CEO Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Hidroelectrica and other companies each have a vision, but we don’t have an integrated one. I want to see what Romania’s plan in the area of wind and solar energy is. It would be an extremely important thing not only for us, but also for those who operate the distribution networks. There are many ongoing projects. Let’s see what will happen to them. So, from our point of view, we are already working on the proposals that we will send to the Ministry of Energy.

We will continue to be the most important electricity producer in Romania, the only one that can store energy. I really want to focus on the core business, to be able to make investments in retrofitting, maintenance, and modernization, to increase the lifespan of the equipment and, of course, to see how we can also diversify the production side. We’ll be back with information as soon as possible, including storage, an extremely hot topic these days.

The pressure is very high on prices. We must make a profit, and the tendency is to lower prices. We must reinvent ourselves all the time, be more efficient, like the private area. The private area is much more innovative, much more flexible. We have something to learn from them, we have a lot of meetings with private companies, but we see how much they also struggle with the bureaucracy, with the legislation, with the frequent changes. We must work on simplifying legislation and bureaucracy.”