Electrocentrale București (ELCEN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday with Sage Geosystems Incorporated, a US company that develops technologies for harnessing and storing geothermal energy. Through this MoU, ELCEN and SAGE intend to carry out a feasibility study on the implementation of technologies for the use of geothermal resources in the Bucharest district heating system.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the General Director of ELCEN, Claudiu CREȚU, in the presence of the Secretary of Energy of the United States of America, Jennifer Granholm and the Minister of Energy of Romania, Sebastian Burduja, within the P-TECC Ministerial Business Forum of Business – Transatlantic Partnership for Energy and Climate Cooperation), an event organized by the Ministry of Energy in partnership with the US Department of Energy on July 23-24 in Bucharest.
Through this MoU, ELCEN will facilitate access to relevant data and the necessary infrastructure in order to carry out the feasibility study, will contribute with technical expertise and operational knowledge specific to the centralized heating system at the level of the Municipality of Bucharest.
Sage Geosystems will perform technical and geological analysis and feasibility study on the geothermal energy utilization solution.
Claudiu Crețu, ELCEN: “The geothermal resource could heat Bucharest. Hot water extracted from underground could reach people’s homes. The use of this technology will greatly reduce pollution in the city, but also heating bills. We will do a study for the exploitation of geothermal energy, an important but underutilized resource. The study will show us where to drill and how we can harness local geothermal energy to provide energy cost-effectively, contributing significantly to the decarbonisation of the district heating sector. The US Department of Energy proposed to ELCEN the collaboration with SAGE Geosystems. We have the help of other states that have expertise and technology. We signed this Memorandum of Understanding to see how we can use the geothermal potential in the coming years for the heating of Bucharest as efficiently and sustainably as possible, in a hybrid approach. “
The Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja: “Today we are taking another important step in the diversification of energy sources in our country, this time through the development of geothermal energy, an approach started in February 2024, when we made a tour of duty in the USA and obtained support for carrying out the feasibility study for the inclusion of geothermal energy in the heating system of the Capital.
The US Secretary of State for Energy, Jennifer Granholm, agreed, at that time, to support our initiative and here we are today accelerating the Romanian Geothermal Program, a useful program for heating Bucharest, as geothermal energy is a source of renewable energy local and ecological, economically efficient, offering a considerable potential to produce thermal energy, then distributed in networks.
The important step taken today will contribute to a modern heating system, in which our homes will benefit from hot water and heat at optimal parameters, for a European capital, at a competitive price.”
On February 7, 2024, ELCEN and the US Department of Energy (DoE) concluded an agreement in Washington to identify investment projects using the geothermal renewable resource and to carry out a feasibility study for the exploitation of geothermal energy in the district heating system of Bucharest.
After exploring various possibilities for cooperation, DoE proposed to ELCEN the collaboration with SAGE Geosystems. SAGE presented the geothermal technology used to ELCEN and submitted a draft MoU with the aim of establishing the collaboration framework between the two entities.
On July 18, 2024, the Romanian Government approved the Memorandum of Understanding with a view to its signing by the two companies on July 23 within the P-TECC.
