Romania’s Transelectrica sees unacceptable condition of most electricity system due to lack of investment

Transelectrica, Romania’s state-owned monopoly of electricity transmission, said in a report that most of the national electricity transmission is in bad or unacceptable condition due to its age and lack of investment, in a moment when the government forces companies to pay extra-dividends from reserves in order to cover soaring spending on wages and pensions.

According to the “Development Plan of National Transmission Network 2018 and 2027”, released by the company, most part of Romania’s electricity transmission system is in bad or unacceptable condition and it is poorly maintained.

Transelectrica made an analysis of the technical state of its network and found out that 52 of 54 overhead power lines are in unacceptable condition, while one third of its electrical transformers are in bad condition.

The report indicates that Transelectrica is not capable of conducting its maintenance plan as it achieved only 66 percent of the planned maintenance works in 2016 and 74 percent in 2017.

The company says 83.6 percent of Romania’s overhead power lines were built before 1980 and only 2.3 percent after 2000.

Money for investment, used to pay wages and pensions

This report comes in a moment when Romanian government forces the state-owned companies – including Transelectrica – to pay extra-dividends from reserves in order to cover the soaring budget gap due to rising wage and social spending and borrowing costs.

A recent BR Analysis showed that the last budget revision indicates that revenues from dividends will increase by RON 1.9 billion (EUR 410 million) compared with the estimated level as the government has forced the profitable state-owned enterprises to pay extra-dividends at the end of this year from their reserves.

The main source of dividends for the government are the state-owned energy companies operating under the control of Energy Ministry or Economy Ministry.