When the wind isn't blowing, we import electricity at record prices

On Thursday evening, when Romania's electricity consumption was at its highest, more than four out of every ten megawatts came from abroad. Wind power generation had dropped to a tenth of its previous level within two days, and both reactors at Cernavodă were still offline, so imports came close to the capacity of the cross-border transmission lines. Meanwhile, among the European electricity markets included in the comparison, Romania's was the most expensive.

On Tuesday, OMV Petrom's 860-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Brazi went offline due to a high-voltage line fault, but the wind was blowing strongly at the time, with wind farms supplying 2,700–2,800 megawatts, so an import of 1,200–1,300 megawatts was enough to cover the evening peak. The Brazi plant returned to the grid on Wednesday, but by Thursday evening wind power output had fallen to 273 megawatts. At half past six, when the country's consumption reached 7,899 megawatts, domestic power plants produced a total of 4,498 megawatts, of which gas-fired plants supplied 1,740, hydropower plants 1,392, and coal-fired plants 636. The missing 3,401 megawatts came from abroad. According to Curs de Guvernare, this is a record, and it is already close to the roughly 4,000 megawatts that the cross-border lines can handle. Electricity contracted in advance for Thursday cost an average of 324.13 euros per megawatt-hour on the Romanian exchange, and for Friday the average price fell to 306.59 euros, with which Romania still remained at the top of the European comparison, while for months the two Cernavodă units — which at full capacity cover roughly a fifth of the country's electricity needs — have been missing from the grid.

During the drought, the level of the Danube fell so low that the first reactor had to be shut down on July 28 and the second on August 13, because there was not enough water for safe cooling. In the summer, stone-laden barges were sunk near the Bala branch to divert more of the river's water into the old Danube channel, toward the plant. Unit 1 finally began supplying electricity to the grid again on Friday afternoon, after 101 days, with its output being gradually increased to 700 megawatts. The second unit remains offline for now, because cooling the first reactor also lowers the water level in the plant's intake basin, and according to Nuclearelectrica, operating both units requires a consistently higher water level. The 700 megawatts now back online will be welcome on windless evenings, but under current plans Unit 1 will be shut down again in 2027 for 24–30 months, so that after refurbishment it can operate for another thirty years. Part of the shortfall would be covered by the Mintia and Iernut gas-fired power plants. In Mintia, one of the turbines was already fired up in October, but the 430-megawatt Iernut plant was originally supposed to be completed in 2020, and the ministry is now promising the start of commercial operation by the end of the first half of 2027. The Cernavodă refurbishment schedule is thus counting on a power plant that is already six years behind schedule.

Ugar