Renewable energy in Baia Mare
The Romanian town of Baia Mare is one of the most active places involved in renewable energy in the country.
România Internațional, 29.08.2014, 12:53
Baia Mare, a northwestern town, was designated the winner of a competition entitled The League of Champions in Renewable Energy Sources in Romania, in the 100,000 inhabitant category. The initiative was coordinated nationally by the Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacau and formed part of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme. A large number of municipalities interested in renewable energy entered the competition. The Baia Mare mayor Catalin Chereches and his team say they wish to turn their town into Romania’s Green Capital:
“First of all, we want to be able to build energy efficiency and help citizens save money through a number of projects to insulate the town’s residential buildings. We are currently working on 70 apartment blocks, but the programme will continue until 2020, by which time we will have finished insulating hundreds of buildings across the town. We started with schools, whose sports rooms have been fitted with solar panels to generate heating and hot water, given that this type of facility involves a lot of energy consumption, which leads to high costs. We have also encouraged the private sector to develop hydroelectric power plants in areas where they don’t damage the environment. In Baia Mare we have a few new investments in this area, but we also wish to use European funds and local investments to develop the town’s hydroenergy potential.”
Baia Mare is a member of the Energy City Association of Romania, the first association dealing with energy efficiency and renewable energy, and a founding member of the Maramures Energy Management Agency. In addition, in 2008 Baia Mare joined the European initiative to create the Covenant of Mayors, a movement aimed at taking palpable steps against global warming and climate change. Mayor Chereches explains:
“We plan to turn a large forested area near Baia Mare into a natural park. This would make Baia Mare one of the few towns in Europe to have a 15,000-hectare park around it, including protected areas, Natura 2000 sites and everything this involves. We also plan to carry out a number of projects in the urban parts of the town, such as creating or restoring the town’s parks. We have a project to build a new 5-hectare park in Baia Mare and restore two existing parks, turning them into green oases and creating a better and healthier life for the citizens. Other plans involve making all town hall buildings more energy efficient to reduce the energy costs and act as an example for private companies and citizens.”
Other investments made in Baia Mare in recent years were aimed at modernising public transport by acquiring new, low pollution vehicles, refurbishing the street lighting system and developing a management system for biodegradable waste:
“The town has a waste management centre with several sorting decks which will be operational until 2017. After this date, we plan to build, using European funding, a regional waste management centre to collect the waste from half of Maramures County. This involves an integrated waste management system, with sorting stations and everything else involved in waste collection.”
Three other towns have won awards in the League of Champions in Renewable Energy Sources competition, by population size: Tasca, in Neamt County, in the 5,000 inhabitant category; Mizil, in Prahova County, in the section dedicated to towns of 5,000-20,000 inhabitants; and Alba Iulia, in the 20,000-100,000 category.
