June 19 (SeeNews) - Romania should increase its renewable energy target to 34% from 27.9% by 2030 in order to contribute to the European Union's renewable goals, the European Commission (EC) said.
Romania also needs to put in place measures to simplify the licensing and permitting procedures and provide additional details on the enabling frameworks for renewable self-consumption and renewable energy communities, the EC said in recommendations on Romania's integrated national energy and climate plan for 2021-2030 published on Tuesday.
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Romania must also provide additional details on the specific measures to ensure sustainability for biomass supply and use in the energy sector, given the important contribution of biomass to Romania across the energy mix, especially in heating and cooling, the EC said.
Further on, the Commission said Romania needs to substantially increase the ambition for reducing both final and primary energy consumption in 2030 in view of the need to increase the level of efforts to reach EU’s 2030 energy efficiency target.
According to the document, Romania must specify the measures supporting the energy security objectives on diversification and reduction of energy dependency and eliminate restrictions to investments in gas production considering the regional potential of the reserves in the Black Sea.
Also, the country needs to list all energy subsidies, including in particular for fossil fuels, and actions undertaken as well as plans to phase them out. and include an analysis of the interactions with air quality and air emissions policy with the required information about the projected air pollutants emissions under the planned policies and measures.
The EC further recommends Romania to discuss needs and measures addressing the structural changes entailed by the clean energy transition for mono-industrial regions such as those depending on the coal industry or other energy-intensive sectors.