Heating systems based on biomass were installed at the school and kindergarten in Tareuca village of Rezina district. According to a press release from the United Nations Development Program, the 230 children of the school and kindergarten will be heated with locally sourced fuel, IPN reports.

Mayor of Tareuca Mihail Olari said the two institutions had been heated with gas from 2005, but the constant rise in the price of gas led to a cut in other costs. “We tested the new heating system during several weeks and saw that the savings we will make per season will amount to hundreds of thousands of lei,” he added.

The biofuel will be provided to the school and kindergarten by agricultural entrepreneur Andrei Girlea. “The farm is over 3,700 hectares in area. I grow rape, barley, wheat and aromatic plants. The harvested waste enables to produce over 6,000 tonnes of briquettes and pellets a year. This quantity allows heating over 40 schools and kindergartens in winter,” said Andrei Girlea, who heats his enterprise with pellets.

Dirk Schuebel, Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova, said the new heating systems enable to reduce the costs for heat by almost half. “This is a good solution for rural schools, kindergartens and community centers” he stated.

Tareuca is one of the four communities in Rezina district that installed biomass-based heating systems at their public institutions within the EU-UNDP Energy and Biomass Project implemented during 2011-2014. The Project’s total budget amounts to €14.56 million Euro, allocated by the European Union (€14 million) and UNDP (€560 000).