The Ministry of Energy announced public consultations on the Methodology for Calculating Heat Consumption in Apartment Buildings.
According to the document, the calculation formulas for the ground floor and the top floor have been adjusted, and the calculation will take into account whether the house has a basement and a technical floor. Housing managers and apartment owners will have the right to approve the Methodology for calculations at the condominium level and propose their own mechanism for distributing heat energy within the building. Energy suppliers will exchange information about heat consumption in disconnected apartments in order to verify compliance with the obligation to maintain a minimum temperature of 18 °C. Otherwise, it will be established that these apartments consume heat from neighboring apartments. According to data of the Ministry of Energy, in 2000-2022 approximately 24 thousand apartments (10% of the total number of apartments in Chisinau municipality) were disconnected from the centralized heating system, and in Balti municipality this share is approximately 30%. The Ministry emphasizes that the centralized system is one of the most efficient from an economic point of view, since two types of energy are generated in cogeneration - thermal energy and electric energy. Thus, the Ministry of Energy insists on connecting/reconnecting all public buildings and the residential sector to the SACET system. The Ministry notes a large amount of investment in changing the heat distribution systems in residential buildings: from Soviet - vertical to horizontal. Thus, individual meters will be installed in each apartment, and consumers will be able to regulate the temperature in each room and pay exactly what they consume. Since 2002, consumers completely disconnected from the centralized heating system were obliged to pay 5% of the amount calculated for the area of the disconnected premises. In 2011, a fee of 10% to 20% of the cost of heat per square meter was introduced for premises disconnected from the heating system. The Constitutional Court declared these provisions unconstitutional in 2022 and forced the government to develop a mechanism that takes into account individual cases. The draft of the new Methodology can be found at https://particip.gov.md/ro/document/stages/*/10708. // 03.06.2023 - InfoMarket.
