ANRE: Total investments of over 1.6 billion lei in gas networks, for 2021

Romanian gas distribution and transmission companies will invest a total of 1.6 billion lei under 2021 projects, according to a press release of the National Energy Regulatory Authority (ANRE), sent to AGERPRES on Monday. In order to fulfill their obligations in accordance with the legal provisions, the transmission and system operator and the natural gas distribution operators submitted, and ANRE approved, the annual investment plans for 2021 in total amount of 1.3 billion lei, which include works aimed at improving the indicators of service performance, safety in operation, the energy efficiency of systems, as well as reducing operating and maintenance costs. Considering the new legal obligations, for the year 2021, the operators have provided, in addition to the annual investment plan initially drawn up, amounts intended for the extension and connection works in total value, to date, of over 365 million lei, which represents an extra 26% of the annual investment effort. Thus, Transgaz plans to invest 825 million lei in the network and an additional 13 million in connections and extensions. In the case of Delgaz Grid, it is about an investment plan of198 million lei and 72 million lei additional investments. E.ON has planned 226 million lei and 238 million lei additional investments. In addition, for the development of natural gas distribution systems on the national territory, by Emergency Ordinance no. 128/2020 approved by Law no. 214/2020, the National Program for connecting the population and non-household customers to the intelligent natural gas distribution system was established, totalling about 3.872 billion lei for the programming period 2021-2027, which can be accessed by the administrative-territorial units individually or in partnership, as well as by inter-community development associations, for the establishment/extension/transformation of intelligent gas distribution networks for the connection of household consumers and non-household customers. The funding sources for this program are external non-reimbursable funds under priority axis 8 "Intelligent and sustainable electricity and gas transmission systems" within the the Large Infrastructure Operational Program (POIM).AGERPRES(RO - author: Florentina Cernat, editor: Nicoleta Gherasi; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)