Our company has evolved step by step. We started with low voltage products and later expanded into medium voltage production as well. To do this, we brought composite insulation technology to Romania, which initially we distributed. However, in just a few years, we started our own production, making us the only company in Romania, and one of the few in Europe with such capabilities. This was a great achievement for both ourselves and the country. It also gave us the courage to take the third step in the 2000s when we entered the high voltage segment.

Our business philosophy is quite simple. Firstly, we pay attention to our customers and ensure that we have a deep understanding of market dynamics. Secondly, from the very early stages of our existence, we began to travel and participate in international trade events to learn about the latest ideas and technologies in our field on a global scale. This connection with best global best practices was incredibly helpful, as it allowed us to understand the overall trends and advance the local market by implementing them.

How have you seen the local market evolve during this time?

The Romanian market has seen notable changes, especially since 2004 following the privatization of distribution and the unbundling of the big state-owned companies. In my opinion, this segmentation was a mistake and goes against the practices of many Western countries that still retain their integrated operators. Fortunately for Romania, large operators have entered the market, but this has also brought new challenges for manufacturers. Today there are four operators, and each has its own particular standards, which means we need to create different products for the same market. This involves developing new molds, creating new designs and performing new tests, which has raised our production costs considerably.

Despite the increase in production costs, the Romanian market has diversified significantly, and it is now active and competitive, including at European and global levels. This is the result of our sector’s openness to innovation. For instance, Eximprod consistently came up with novel solutions for various applications, which made them more convenient, safer, and overall better. We have nearly 3 million isolators installed in the Romanian network without recording a single incident. In this segment, mistakes are not really an option, and the great responsibility is not to create one good individual component, but a million components equally good.

You were one of the first companies in Romania to venture into the renewables sector. How did this pan out for you?

We started out by buying a turbine initially installed in Ploiesti, which we moved to Tulcea County. It was the first experiment, a successful one, and an extraordinary learning opportunity. We continued developing this project in the coming years, but it was a tedious process because at that time the authorities did not have the necessary knowledge in this field, and there were hardly any established norms. Our work has contributed significantly to outlining the standards in this sector. We tried to develop more projects later, but the obstacles were numerous, so in the end, we only managed to capitalize on two of them: a 70MWh project that we initially hoped to develop ourselves, but financing was scarce at the time, so we sold it to Vestas; the second 50 MWh project was sold to Engie. We had another 200 MWh project, but unfortunately, the government changed the green certificates legislation in the process, so we stopped, counted our losses, and renounced the contract we had been working on.