Wind parks cover a quarter of Romania's energy consumption

The electricity output from wind parks has covered almost a quarter of Romania’s energy consumption on January 17 and 18. Wind parks thus surpassed other power producers, such as hydropower plants and gas power plants and were just behind coal-powered thermal power plants in terms of output. At times, wind parks were the main source of electricity, especially during the night. The record wind power production was reached on Tuesday evening, January 17, between 16:00 and 22:00, when the wind parks generated over 2,600 MW of electricity per hour, more than coal power plants (2,500 MW), gas power plants (2,200 MW), hydro power plants (2,000 MW), and the nuclear power plant at Cernavoda (1,400 MW). Romania’s power consumption reached over 9,400 MW per hour in that interval. Romania recorded record electricity consumption in the last two weeks, due to the cold weather. This also drove the electricity prices up on the spot market, to a record RON 500 (EUR 111) per MW, reports local Economica.net. The spot energy market allows producers of surplus energy to instantly locate available buyers for this energy. The energy is delivered in the following day. According to market sources, most of the surplus energy is exported to Hungary, which is facing a deficit of electricity. In Hungary, the energy prices vary between EUR 116-128 euro per MW. Romania had an electricity production of 10,200 MW yesterday at noon. The national consumption amounted to over 8,800 MW whereas the exports reached 1,377 MW. editor@romania-insider.com