ELCEN has moved the planned Grozăvești cogeneration plant past initial bidder screening, but that does not mean a contract has been awarded or Bucharest’s heating system has already improved. It is a meaningful procurement milestone, while the decisive choices on final bids, construction and system accountability remain ahead.
The company said on Thursday that it had completed its evaluation of documents submitted in the first stage for a new high-efficiency cogeneration unit at CTE Grozăvești. Candidates meeting the qualification criteria will enter the second stage, a competitive dialogue in which technical and economic solutions will be developed before the remaining participants are invited to submit final offers.
ELCEN estimates the investment at around 600 million lei. The project is planned to provide 32.5 MW of electrical capacity and 41 MW of thermal capacity, using natural gas and designed, according to the company, for possible future hydrogen blending. ELCEN says the plant would improve efficiency and the security of electricity and heat supply. Those are project objectives, rather than delivered outcomes: the supplied report gives no contract-award date, construction start date or commissioning schedule.
The announcement also arrived amid a dispute over who is accountable for Bucharest’s heating system. On the same day, Mayor Ciprian Ciucu criticised ELCEN for what he described as insufficient information about works and investments to replace ageing plants. He said he would seek a meeting with the energy minister to discuss the heating system and a possible transfer of ELCEN to the Bucharest city administration.
Ciucu’s case is that heat production, handled by ELCEN, and transport and distribution, handled by Termoenergetica, sit under different authorities. ELCEN can fairly point to progress in the Grozăvești procedure. Yet reaching competitive dialogue cannot by itself settle coordination between generation and the network. The practical test for residents will be whether this stage produces a contract, a public delivery timetable and clearer responsibility across the whole system.
Sources
- Digi24 · Source date: 2026-11-12
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-12