ICEMENERG

ICEMENERG (Institutul de Cercetări și Modernizări Energetice, the Institute for Power Research and Modernisation) in Bucharest designed and made in small series electronic equipment for the national power system, under the Ministry of Electric Power (MEE) [1].

History

Electronic instruments for the power sector were made from 1950 under the Ministry of Electrification and the Electrotechnical Industry, later the Ministry of Electric Power [1]. ICEMENERG was formed in 1974 by merging ICENERG (founded in 1967) and IRME (founded in 1960); large series of power-system equipment (transformers, meters, insulators) were made by the factories of the machine-building ministry, while small, specialised series stayed with the MEE and its institute [1]. In the 1970s it began producing electronic equipment and fitting out the national power system with control and communication equipment of its own design, with Romanian components including the computers [2]. In 1990 it became SC ICEMENERG SA, and in 2000 the National Research and Development Institute for Energy, INCD-ICEMENERG [1].

Products

Its 1984 anniversary catalogue, of 698 pages, has the prospectuses of 268 devices made at the institute, in seven groups: electrical and electronic measuring and test instruments; relays and protection devices; automation for thermomechanical plant; telecontrol and automation; telecommunications in electrical installations; non-electrical measurements; and miscellaneous equipment [1]. They used silicon semiconductors and integrated circuits, close to similar foreign products [1]. Examples are FRANC, SEVER, DÎRZ, DECONT, ADM-2, TD-0.2, TLN, LEA-BSL [1]. In 1998 the power ministry’s units still made 118 types of products; the institute’s 1998 catalogue (79 sheets) added only nine new ones – FNEN, FAZEN, APM, LDCL, ONEST, AMEL, SS1, SS5, REV, REVAD – and by 2017 no measuring, control or command equipment for the power system was made within the ministry any longer [1]. Chapter II of the same book says ICEMENERG designed and made more than 250 types of measuring, control and command instruments for the power system, built entirely from Romanian components, including the computers [2].