Overview of Power Sector
The electricity sector in Romania is supervised currently by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The National Electricity Company, CONEL, is split along functional lines into four separate joint stock companies entirely owned by the state and represented by the Ministry of Industry and Resources, as follows:

Romanian Transmission Grid Map

The entire distribution function is divided between eight regional companies (Figure 2), and includes 31,012 km of distribution lines and 1,296 distribution substations. The entire electricity grid serves 8.5 million consumers and delivers 54.6 TWh (2008), 49.9 TWh (2009). Five regional distribution companies have been acquired by foreign investors (Electrica Oltenia by CEZ, Electrica Moldova by E.ON, and Electrica Banat, Electrica Dobrogea and ElectricaMuntenia Sud by Enel). The remaining three regional companies are owned by Electrica. For 2009 the proportion of energy distributed by the electrical distributors was:

Romanian Electric Distributor Territories

Electricity in Romania is primarily generated from thermal power plants (coal, natural gas, and oil), with the balance of production from hydroelectric facilities and a recently commissioned nuclear power plant (Figure 3). Romania has a 29.1% imported energy dependency ratio which is significantly lower than the European Union average (53.8%). Romania is also a net exporter of electricity (approximately 10%). Romania’s overall goal is to become an important electricity exporter and to double its power output to approximately 100 TWh by 2020 (in 2010 Romania produced 59.14 TWh). Taking into account the approximately 3% per year growth of energy demand Romania will need an available output of more than 20,000 MW, most of which will be met by increases in nuclear and hydro capacity. Current plans call for some 42.3% of Romania’s future electricity production to be covered by nuclear power plants, while hydropower plants should cover 24.3%, fossil fuel units 16.5% (currently at 50.05%) and renewable energy installations other than large hydro, 16.8%. Romania established goals for energy production from renewable sources: 33% in 2010, 35% in 2015 and 38% in 2020. The government hopes to achieve this RES goal in part by stimulating investments to improve energy efficiency throughout the entire resources-productiontransmission-distribution-consumption chain, thereby reducing the RES capacity that needs to be built.

Structure of Energy Generation in Romainia

Power Sector Issues
The power sector in Romania faces a number of challenges, which can be addressed through integration of Smart Grid technologies. As with other utility companies in the region, the Romanian electric power system incurs significant non-technical losses (NTL). As electricity theft and billing irregularities form a major chunk of NTL, it is very difficult to detect and control potential causes of NTL with existing SCADA systems and end-use metering equipment. These losses affect quality of supply, electrical load on generating stations and tariffs imposed on electricity consumed by genuine customers. In addition, the aging infrastructure has made incorporating renewable energy facilities into the grid difficult - since the power grid was initially designed for one-way power flow, from a central generating facility to the consumer, integrating intermittent generating sources is complicated without advanced control and metering technologies. Finally, transmission lines are operating across great distances, resulting in high energy losses. To connect the planned new generation facilities to the grid, Romania has to increase the transmission system capacity. However, investments in traditional transmission capacity alone will not be enough to guarantee the system’s stability because of the intermittent nature of the many new renewable energy power plants. An integrated strategy of Smart Grid development would help to secure transmission system reliability.

Smart Grid Status in Romania
The government (including local territory administration) or the nation’s utilities have prepared the development and investment plans to implemented the Smart Grid technologies in the Romanian transmission system, as summarized on the next page.

In addition to the above projects, Electrica has submitted for approval 23 projects for grant funds from the EU representing a total of approximately 20 million Euros of which, 8 million Euros are allocated for implementation of the AMR system (Automatic Meter Reading) for metering activities and dispatcher consumption.

Transelectrica is obliged by law to implement investments in the electricity transmission system necessary to guarantee its stability, which includes the following investment program.

Modernization and retrofit of the power substations within the Power Transmission Grid (PTG) and construction of new substations

Closing the 400 kV national power grid loop and constructing the 400 kV metropolitan loop for Bucharest city

Integration of Units 3 and 4 of the Nuclear Power Plant Cernavoda and of the new wind farms