Romanian Minister of Energy Sebastian Burduja announced that Japanese company Itochu and French energy firm EDF have expressed interest in the Tarnita-Lapustesti pump-storage hydropower project. They are prepared to conduct the feasibility study at their own expense, followed by the design and construction of the power plant.
Burduja noted that the Romanian state energy fund (SAPE) has struggled to find a contractor for the feasibility study, which was requested over a year ago. In July of last year, SAPE initiated a market consultation process to estimate the costs of constructing a storage capacity of up to 1,000 MW for the Tarnita-Lapustesti facility, which aims to help balance the national electricity system for periods of 4 to 6 hours.
The Tarnita-Lapustesti project envisions a pump-storage hydropower plant with an output of 1,000 MW (comprising four units of 250 MW each), to be located 30 kilometers northwest of Cluj-Napoca. This project is a priority in Romania’s national energy strategy for the period 2007-2020, designed to address imbalances in the energy system caused by the variable production of renewable energy. The plant will function as both a producer and a consumer of electricity, depending on system needs.
In 2016, three Chinese companies—China Gezhouba Group, China Huadian Engineering, and Huaneng Lancang River Hydropower—formed a consortium and submitted a preliminary bid for the construction of the hydropower plant.
