“In our journey to obtain electricity from renewable sources, I believe we’ve learned quite a lot, and we are happy to share some of our experience with those following in our footsteps.

At Ursus, as well as at our majority shareholder Asahi Group Holdings — who are very strict about standards — we committed ourselves to pioneering initiatives. What we did in Romania regarding vPPA (virtual power purchase agreements) is an absolute first.

Our search for this solution focused on identifying ways to generate renewable electricity despite not having sufficient installed capacity in our breweries or the ability to develop alternative energy sources on our own sites,” said Robert Uzună, Vice President Corporate Affairs, Ursus Breweries, during the Sustainability in Business Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest and Sustainability Today.

Key statements:

• “We have two major challenges. One we’ve already addressed. We partnered with Enery to develop a photovoltaic park in Transylvania, which feeds electricity into the national grid and is accounted for under Ursus’ consumption.
• The second challenge, which is not so easy to solve, is what we will do in the biogas area. Currently, our burners that heat the beer wort use methane gas. To comply with European legislation by 2030, we are trying to find a solution similar to what we did for electricity — a way to introduce biogas in Europe that can be counted as part of Ursus’ consumption.
• There is still a lot of work to do at the European level, including legislation and certification in collaboration with national authorities, but this is a journey where we are seeking solutions together with partners from Romania and across Europe.
• Distribution companies are generally Romanian entrepreneurial firms, many with 30–35 years of experience, facing several challenges. One of their main challenges is internal governance, which qualifies them to engage in discussions about financing and co-funding with various financial entities.”