European Commission recognizes the efforts of the Ministry of Energy to meet benchmarks 129 and 133 related to the second payment request from the PNRR and lifts the suspension of the payment of 37.2 million euros to Romania

After a previous suspension, in which the Commission found that certain milestones and objectives related to milestones 129 and 133 of the PNRR had not been satisfactorily met in Romania’s second payment request, the European Commission now recognizes the progress made in the implementation of National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

Specifically, the Commission concluded that milestone 133 – Investments for new cogeneration electricity production capacities – is currently satisfactorily met by the Ministry of Energy. Consequently, the Commission now proposes to unlock 17.8 million euros corresponding to this stage.

Sebastian Burduja, Minister of Energy: “Since assuming the mandate of Minister of Energy, I have proposed the unblocking of all projects and the acceleration of investments, especially those in PNRR and the Modernization Fund. Milestone 133 of the PNRR was a challenge for us and I am all the happier that we managed to unlock it and complete it in record time and on the assumed deadline. We signed 4 contracts for the construction of high-efficiency cogeneration energy production capacities in Craiova, Constanța, Arad and Râmnicu Vâlcea, totaling an installed power of 486.2 MW electric and 355.8 MW thermal, much higher than the assumed target of 300 MW electricity. Today, all 4 investment projects, worth 3.5 billion lei, are in the implementation process.”

Milestone 129 – Hydrogen production capacities – is being fulfilled, at this moment 3 financing contracts have been signed, totaling 33.82 MWH2, and in the next two months the rest of the contracts necessary to fulfill the target of 60 MWH2 installed power will be signed .