Romania’s Perspectives—Net Provider or Recipient of Energy Security at the European Level?

The study aims to highlight a series of vulnerabilities of the energy system in Romania, the problems generated by the lack of an integrated vision of the optimal structure of the energy mix, and the economic-financial mechanisms to support it. The chapter highlights the vulnerability of the energy system in Romania expressed through a series of indicators, namely, the structure of the electricity-generation capacities (energy mix), the availability of power units, the electricity consumption, and the share of the population that registers utility arrears, exports and imports, and electricity prices. The chapter emphasizes the importance of the cyclic component of electricity prices from a double perspective, namely, the comparability of the data series, respectively, and the weekly variability of the energy demand, viewed as a vulnerability. Compared to the classical method, in the model we propose, the values of the differences in electricity prices from the period 2020 to 2022 compared to the year 2019 for each day of the week are considered a time series for the entire analyzed period.