The owners of apartments with autonomous heating systems could pay less for the heat supplied to their building. The Ministry of Economy made a series of amendments to the normative framework by which it suggests that the dwellers who heat with boilers their apartments located in buildings that are connected to the centralized heating system should pay 10% of the volume of heat consumed by the block, not 20% as now, IPN reports.

In a press release, the Ministry says the amendments were proposed following multiple complaints from residents of Chisinau and Balti municipalities. The main argument for such a decision is that 20% of the price of a square meter is a financial burden for the owners of autonomous heating systems as the gas bills paid by these are much higher than those paid by the dwellers connected to the centralized system.

Under the current regulations, the thermoelectric unit has the right to seek penalties for the delay in paying for the invoiced heat, but this is a violation of the legislation. The amendments eliminate these constraints in favor of such dwellers that total 22,000 in Chisinau alone.

Also, the Energy Efficiency Agency is working out a methodology for distributing the volumes and cost of heat supplied to dwellers of an apartment building, by which a different calculation percentage will be set for apartments disconnected from the centralized heating system, depending on the location of the apartment – on the lower or upper floors, on the corner, etc.

Based on this methodology, an energy audit will be carried out in buildings to determine the exact volume of heat consumed by each apartment and the percentage for the apartments disconnected from the centralized heating system.

The draft decision was transmitted to the authorities for endorsement and will be soon submitted to the Government for approval.