Timisoara, 19.09.2019: Business Forum Germany-Romania on financing geothermal projects in Romania

Organizer: Romanian Association of Building Services Engineers
Host: “Politehnica” University Timisoara

Benefits of geothermal energy as an alternative to traditional energy supply started to gain more attention in Romania. Therefore a preparatory workshop to identify collaboration opportunities in exploiding geothermal energy took place with strong participation from research field, from business sector and from public administration.

In the West Region of Romania drilling research projects were already performed so data are available for stakeholders and investors interested in developing business projects. Progress in implementation can be proved by already existing good practice examples, e.g.

• Beius city – the single city in Romania what is entirely heated by geothermal energy;
• Oradea city – location of first geothermal power plant;
• Therme Bucharest – first aquapark based on geothermal energy;
• ELI-Np Magurele – the largest shallow geothermal application in Europe;

Steinbeis actions in Romania are aimed to connect research with industry in various fields. Thus, in this sector, actions based on request from German investor interested in producing vegetables in greenhouses heated through geothermal energy, resulted into expanding the market potential by organizing a specialized business forum.

Specialized bodies in the field like Geoexchange Romanian Society with wide expertise in geothermal area through prof. Robert Gavriliuc and Mr. Gabor Kaba is the main promoter of the meeting that took place in Timisoara in order to tackle the subject.

Support actions were carried out by Mr. Ioan Dobosi, representing the Romanian Association of Building Services Engineers (AIIR – Timisoara). Contribution came also from local administration bodies like “Vest” Regional Development Agency and Vice-mayor of Timisoara municipality, Mr. Dan Diaconu. Openness to collaborate in the field was expressed by presenting both national funding programs with target-axis and already funded projects.

Presence of “Politehnica” University of Timisoara enhance the probability of future projects to happen as facilities from Research Institute for Renewable Energy are enough to carry out the needed future complimentary research requests.

Future forum on geothermal potential is planned to take place in April 2020 and it is aimed to be a platform on which

• an economic mission from Germany would support the business collaboration and
• Romanian geothermal market potential will be presented to future business partners.

Steinbeis is ready to facilitate technology transfer by getting directly involved or finding suitable partners for applying in projects funded through Geothermica, Operational Program Large Infrastructure Program (Priority Axis “Promoting clean energy and energy and energy efficiency in order to sustain low-carbon emissions economy”) and Horizon 2020 component addressing to SMEs. Learning Energy Efficiency Networks (LEEN), management system developed by Fraunhofer Institute is under STM facilitation and could become basis for various projects carried out with companies, local administration bodies and universities. For this, more than 40 specialized centers on energy/geothermal field could be involved in different initiatives for geothermal energy potential in Romania.

Director of Steinbeis Transfer Management, Jürgen Raizner, explained areas of collaboration within next German–Romanian Business Forum. Project manager for different initiatives on behalf of Steinbeis Romania, Roxana Boboruta was present in this meeting in order to follow-up on diverse opportunities raising from the discussions held.