Romania: Geothermal Energy for Energy Security in an Elderly Home
Alba Iulia is a historic city in the Transylvania region known for its star-shaped fortress which is the largest and best preserved in Romania. The Municipality takes an active approach to increasing the quality of life, including energy security for the elderly.
This project will improve the thermal and electrical infrastructure by developing a technical solution based on a microgrid approach that produces energy from geothermal sources and ensures energy safety for the Alba Iulia nursing home. The technical solution developed in the project will ensure connectivity between the heat pumps installed as part of the project and the photovoltaic panels which were alreday installed on the building. This will ensure energy security and efficiency in a building that previously consumed a lot of energy. It will also reduce CO2 emission with 50%. Besides all of this, the temperature indoors becomes more comfortable for the elderly residents.
Partnership with a Romanian company
Alba Iulia Municipality is partnering up with SC Societatea de Inginerie Sisteme SA, one of the most important providers of solutions and services in the domain of process control in the areas of energy and utilities, oil and gas, refineries, petrochemistry, food industry and civil buildings in Romania.
With financial support from the EEA and Norway Grants through a call under the SMEs Growth Programme in Romania, Societatea de Inginerie Sisteme SA managed to create a microgrid pilot application which will be put in practice for the elderly home in Alba Iulia.
Societatea de Inginerie Sisteme SA will develop the methodology for the microgrid design. The main goals is to incorporate very important attributes of the microgrid so that it is controllable, interconnectable, reconfigurable and integrated in the main grid.
Microgrid for an elderly home
The building of the Alba Iulia Home for the Elderly has a number of deficiencies and dysfunctions, and those have increased over time. The project will improve the energy efficiency of the main building of the home of elderly and increase indoor comfort by installing geothermal pumps, replacing the thermal distribution system and monitoring the performance obtained through an intelligent Building Energy Management System (BEMS). The technical energy efficiency solution developed ensures connectivity between the heat pumps installed through the project and the photovoltaic panels with which the building is already equipped.
The project will contribute to the local development strategy to:
- Increase the energy security supply in Alba Iulia and decrease CO2 emission by using energy produced from renewable sources
- Ensuring comfortable, accessible and sustainable life conditions and a clean environment for the community
Project testimonial
Expected project results
- Estimated annual CO2 emission reductions: 175 tonnes of CO2 eq.
- Energy produced from geothermal sources in MWh/Year: 1 174 MWh/Year
- Installed capacity for production of geothermal energy (in MW): 0,36 MW
- A refurbished installation for the production of geothermal energy
- Almost 30,000 euro/year cost reduction for gas and electricity bills
- 69% reduction of energy consumption
- 85-100% of the amount of heat produced capitalised in self-consumption regime
Visit from the EEA and Norway Grants
The Norwegian Embassy in Romania and Innovation Norway visited project under the Energy Programme in Romania during a visit to the cities of Cluj-Napoca and Alba Iulia in October 2022. The delegation met with the mayors of the Romanian cities and representatives implementing projects under the EEA and Norway Grants to great success. See some stories and pictures here.
The Energy Programme in Romania
The project is supported by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein through the EEA and Norway Grants. See more opportunities under the Energy Programme in Romania.