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ilustratie: foto de la conferinta

The concept of sustainability must be extended to cover every citizen

The development of energy production in solar panels means that every

citizen has the right to mount panels on his roof, and if access to sunlight is
restricted, such disputes may be resolved in court.
“If until now the right to sunlight was something abstract, from this year on it
is something quantifiable. So if he is affected by anyone, that one will have
to pay. I even expect legal actions to take place if a wrongly issued building
permit affects a neighbor whose solar installation is no longer working
according to the originally designed parameters”, says Dan Fleșariu, CEO
of Wiren Romania, during the “Sustainable Communities – Timișoara”
conference, organized by Energynomics and SmartiCity.
He mentioned that in future real estate transactions it will become very
important that the respective building is equipped with photovoltaic energy
production facilities, which will be an advantage for both the buyer and the
seller.
At the same time, at the level of local public authorities, it is not enough to
have a department dedicated to sustainability projects in a locality, but this
concept must be extended to all citizens and must take into account the
needs of each individual. “A sustainable community cannot exist without
sustainable individuals. At the level of local authorities, there should be a
paradigm shift that would lead to its operation as a fully geared mechanism
in the direction of sustainability”, added Fleșariu.

The authorities are afraid of the PPP

The authorities in Romania are afraid of public-private partnerships (PPP)
because they are perceived not as tools for carrying out projects, but as
weapons against the administration, considers Val Mureșan, advisor to the
mayor of Timisoara on digitization and smart city issues.
“In the administration there is a fear of collaborating with the private sector.
PPP is not seen in us as a tool, but as a weapon against the current
administration. It is also a cultural problem that does not exist in other
countries. There is a bit of fear towards this way of working”, said Mureșan.
“Another disease of the Romanian administration is that money has been
invested in digitization, but the perception is that these computer systems
are not used because they do not communicate with each other, and
people are outdated because they are not IT professionals. Bureaucracy
will exist as long as there is paper in the administration, and digitization is a
first step”, said Mureșan.

Companies hesitate to make new investments

Companies in Romania hesitate to make new investments, even if there
are a multitude of co-financing programs at the national level, said Roxana
Mircea, Managing Partner of REI Grup.
“We see a slight freeze in investments. It is the first time in ten years that
we are in the position to beg companies to invest. People are undecided
about whether to invest or wait. We recommend them not to wait because
there are many opportunities”, said Mircea. A recent REI analysis has
shown that companies have more than 2.5 billion euros available in the
coming months for investments in green energy production or increasing
energy efficiency, in the digitization of SME activity, recycling, production or
in SME re-technology, in the most crowded period in non-reimbursable
financing that our country went through, since joining the EU in 2007.

The Ministry of Energy proposes a National Energy Efficiency

Investment Fund
The Ministry of Energy intends to create a National Energy Efficiency
Investment Fund, which will be an economic-financial instrument intended
to support and prioritize projects aimed at increasing energy efficiency and
reducing greenhouse gases.
“We are in discussions to promote the Energy Efficiency Investment Fund,
which will have to be an incentive for efficiency. We have already put [the
initial form of the document] in public debate and we are waiting for
interventions and suggestions from the business environment in the
development of this fund. We have already identified some sources of
financing”, said Matei Dimitriu, from the Directorate for Energy Efficiency in
the Ministry of Energy.
Investors’ attention is currently focused on the costs of installing
photovoltaic panels, but in the future a significant challenge will be given by
technical and commercial exploitation. The use of the tracking system for
the installation of photovoltaic panels leads to a 16% increase in energy
production and contributes to a 5% decrease in the cost per kWh, said
Marius Bolba, Sales Manager at Geminox.
“If we talk about sustainable communities, at the same time we must also
talk about the local production of renewable energy. Photovoltaic energy is
within reach of the end user, the household customer and businesses. We
are talking a lot about the installation of photovoltaic panels on the ground
for next year, but it will be a challenge to operate it technically and
efficiently from a commercial point of view, just as it will be a challenge to
commercialize the photovoltaic energy”, said Bolba.

Cogeneration energy should combine with green energy

The energy produced in cogeneration power plants can be used in
combination with the energy obtained from renewable sources, especially
since it can be used for both heating and cooling – a topic that is discussed
too little, believes Cristian Athanasovici, Business Development Manager at
Kawasaki Gas Turbine Europe GmbH
“Cogeneration solutions can be included in a mix with photovoltaics or with
technical solutions that use geothermal energy and solar panels.
Cogeneration is a solution especially today, when we talk about heating
and cooling systems. But no one talks about cooling solutions”, stated
Cristian Athanasovici. He added that the authorities should provide co-
financing to those companies that upgrade their cogeneration power plants
to be able to use both natural gas and hydrogen, which is seen as an
energy source of the future.
Colterm Timișoara could be a solution both for balancing the local and
national energy system, said Petre Nenu, the general director of the
company. He added that the company did not benefit from investments in
the last 30 years, including “because it did not have a plan”. “It was
invested in keeping the existing systems in operation, but it was not
invested in high-efficiency cogeneration”, said Nenu.
Starting this winter, Colterm will also start using biomass to generate heat.
This is the third source of energy, besides coal and natural gas.

Smart city is automation, transport, security

The concept of a smart city is incomplete if such an approach does not
include a set of ecological measures, such as automation, e-mobility or
security, believes Cătălin Lepinzean, Business Development Manager at
Phoenix Contact Romania. “When we talk about smart cities we have to
include building automation, solutions for transport infrastructure and cyber
security,” said Lepinzean.
Phoenix Contact develops and manufactures equipment and technologies
for the electrical and electronic industry for powering, protecting,
connecting and automating systems. “We are very involved in the digital
future of factories. More and more, we are implementing a path to zero-
emission factories,” added Lepinzean.
City halls in large cities in Romania, such as Bucharest, Iași, Piatra Neamț
or Timișoara, have started investing in smart public video surveillance and
traffic monitoring systems. For the German company Bosch, the largest
ongoing project of this kind, worth 10 million euros, is with the mayor’s
office of sector 6 in the Capital.
“The biggest project of the last 2-3 years is currently in sector 6 of the
Capital. It is a 10 million euro project through which we secure schools,
parks, playgrounds, and in addition the people from the town hall also
wanted to have their own system for counting the cars passing through
sector 6. Through this project we delivered 2,600 cameras worth
considering”, declared Tiberiu Nicolae, Cluster Sales Manager Eastern
Europe, Bosch Video Surveillance Division.
“I travel a lot in Western Europe, but Bucharest is one of the cities with the
most cameras mounted on poles, you can see 3-4 cameras on a pole and
each one belongs to a different institution. That’s good, but it’s also
strange, because there is no unification at the municipal level,” Nicolae
added.
With two factories, a research and development center and sales offices,
all four business sectors of the group are represented in Romania, namely
mobility solutions, consumer goods, construction and energy technology
and industrial technology.
In turn, the ABB Group has collaborations with over 100 universities
globally, including the University of Bucharest, but it also wants to start a
collaboration with the University of Timisoara “in the fields of robotics and
artificial intelligence”, said Nicușor Stan, Business Development Manager
Traction Motion Business for the Balkans area. The group has 800
engineers in the research area, and operates a network of seven research
laboratories and 45 research/development centers. Stan added that
Timisoara is the only city in Romania that opted for LTO batteries produced
by ABB for urban electric transport. These batteries have a service life of
15 years or over 20,000 charge/discharge cycles. The ABB Group
produces over 10,000 such solutions per year and the demand is extremely
high, especially in the sustainable urban transport sector.

CASETA
Cogeneration with support from Novotrol
Throughout the event, Novotrol representatives answered participants’
questions. Novotrol is Baker Hughes Group’s channel partner for the
Turbomachinery and Process Solutions (T.P.S.) and Flow & Process
Technologies (F.&P.T.) divisions for Romania. “Our story started in 1996
with F.&P.T. Masoneilan Control Valves and Consolidated Safety Valves
division. 27 years later we are still with F&P.T. but also with the Nuovo
Pignone division from T.P.S. and with Thermodyn, thus offering more
complete and complex solutions such as gas turbines and compressors”,
told us Andrei Paraschiv, Sale Engineer Novotrol.

BANDA SAU CASETA

The conference was organized by Energynomics and SmartiCity with the
support of partners ABB, Bosch, EximBank, Geminox, Kawasaki Gas
Turbine Europe, LAPP Romania, Novotrol, Phoenix Contact, REI Group,
UP Romania, Wiren.