Alstom Power: Romania vies for new energy production facilities

Delayed investments in major projects on the segment of electricity generation are placing the Romanian market in an extremely difficult position: the impossibility of getting access to the necessary equipment, as most industrial groups in the field have their production reserved for the next three to four years. “Had Romania started these major projects five years ago, the situation would have been under control. Now, however, Romania is fighting globally in the race for new production facilities and the ones choosing what investments will be operated are the producers of equipment needed for such investments. Things were different a while ago,” explains George Sirakas (photo) , general manager of Alstom Power Service Romania. A lot of projects have been announced lately on the segment of electricity generation, taking investments of billions of euros for generating from scratch hundreds of MWs of installed capacity. Alstom French group has recently decided to build a plant domestically for the production of equipment for thermoelectric power stations. The investment revolves around 20m euros, will be located in southern Bucharest and works will last for around 18 months. This year, Alstom expects domestic turnover to rise by 10-15% from 34.3m euros in 2007.