Romanian Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said that a Norwegian company wants to invest 800 million euros in Romania to develop a coal replacement plants.
According to Minister Popescu, the unnamed Norwegian company wants to build more production facilities for this type of fuel that can replace coal, especially in Jiu Valley, where a lot of coal-fired power plants are located.
The coal substitutes are fuels specifically designed to mimic coal but with lesser environmental impact, developed as a way to keep coal-fired power plants operating even as the use of coal is phased out.
In early November, Minister Popescu Popescu and CEO of Norwegian company Arbaflame Bjorn Knappskog have signed a letter of intent to transform the operation of CET Paroseni into a sustainable one in terms of CO2 emissions, in line with the objectives assumed by the Romanian Government to achieve the targets of the energy transition.
The statement from the Ministry said that the collaboration with Arbaflame will involve the replacement of the coal that consists the main fuel for the operation of the Paroseni power plant, with the pellets produced by Arbaflame, and, in the long-term, includes the construction of a pellet production plant in Romania. These plants will use sustainable biomass resources, which will help reduce CO2 emissions by more than 90 %.
Arbaflame is a Norwegian company that has developed a patented technology for pellets that share the properties of coal, but which burns with a significantly reduced amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
