Residents of 178 apartments in Chișinău city will have savings of up to 30% of thermal energy consumption thanks to a modernized centralized heating system installed with the support of UNDP Moldova and the Global Environment Facility. The old system with vertical distribution of thermal energy was switched to a modern one with horizontal distribution. The project was implemented in partnership with Green City Lab Moldova and Termoelectrica.

The new system also offers access to centralized hot water, which has been missing for a long time.

"We are grateful and I recommend this solution to everyone. You connect heating as you want, use as much water as you need and everyone knows how much they need to pay. We have not had centralized hot water since the '90s. But now we have hot water; we cannot even believe that we do not have to wait for the boiler to warm up. Before, after the warm water was used, we had to wait for a few hours for the water to warm up again. Now we have hot water all the time. We can even fill a bathtub,” says Svetlana, resident of one of the multi-apartment residential buildings with a modernized heating system.

Most of the multi-apartment residential buildings in Chișinău that are connected to the heating system use vertical distribution. This system does not allow apartments’ owners to regulate their heat consumption and the bills are issued based on the overall consumption, registered by the building’s thermal connector. The payment is done via the housing management entity, which divides the total amount between individual consumers, according to several criteria, including apartments’ area.

The new heating distribution system gives apartments’ owners the opportunity to adjust the temperature level, depending on their personal needs and comfort. Each apartment has its own meter that monitors consumption, based on which the bill will be issued.

“Each consumer can see his/her own daily and monthly heating consumption and adjust promptly to the necessary thermal comfort. Thus, the comfort of the family is ensured and people start to consume more responsibly," mentions Vasile Leu, Acting General Director of Termoelectrica. The company covered the installation of individual thermal points in each of the three blocks and the modernization of the commonly used infrastructure for thermal energy distribution.

“We are supporting the change of the vertical heat distribution system to the horizontal distribution of heat. What does it mean in reality? In reality, it means that the owners of the apartments will be able to regulate the heat by themselves, which was not the reality before. This energy efficiency solution will bring savings to the owners of the apartments - up to 30%, according to our calculations,” said Andrea Cuzyova, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative to the Republic of Moldova. The United Nations Development Programme in Moldova and GEF allocated about US$90,000 for this project’s implementation.

A similar pilot project to change the heat distribution system from vertical to horizontal was implemented this year in Bălți city.