Electricity crisis due to heat wave: Ford and Dacia stop production

Electricity crisis causes production to stop

Due to the halt in production by the US company Ford and the Renault subsidiary Dacia, nationwide electricity demand had already fallen by 200 megawatts on Monday. Bolojan added that other companies would follow suit and reduce their consumption as well.

Trigger of the Electricity crisis in Romania there are one Heat wave and one persistent drought, which led to extremely low water levels, especially on the Danube. As a result, the country had to drastically reduce its electricity production. Among other things, the energy company Nuclearelectrica switched off one of the two reactors at its nuclear power plant because there was no longer enough water flowing through the Danube for cooling. Nuclearelectrica otherwise produces around a fifth of national electricity consumption. The country currently has to import between 2,000 and 2,500 megawatts of electricity every day, explained Bolojan. Since import capacities are limited, the Prime Minister renewed his appeal to companies, private households and state institutions to continue to voluntarily reduce electricity consumption.

Hungary: Nuclear power plant shortly before shutdown

The situation is also tense in neighboring Hungary. The country’s only nuclear power plant, Paks, is on the verge of being completely shut down due to the historically low water levels of the Danube. The plant, which normally supplies around half of Hungary’s electricity, is currently only running at a good ten percent of its capacity of two gigawatts. The last remaining turbine could possibly remain in operation until Tuesday, said Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar. As in Romania, households and companies in Hungary followed a government call to save energy. The pharmaceutical company Richter, for example, announced that it would reduce its electricity requirements by more than half in the next three weeks.