Energy Minister Victor Parlicov on Wednesday convened a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, ANRE, thermal energy companies and experts in the field to find solutions to cases where some consumers disconnected from the centralized heating system received disproportionate bills for heating.

Several objective factors were found to have led to such situations

-The mayor of Chisinau, in the absence of a decision of the City Council in this regard, canceled the payment of compensation in the amount of up to 40% of the bill for about 26 thousand vulnerable families.

-In winter 2022-23 disconnected consumers received by default the highest category of energy vulnerability and compensation from the Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund to cover the costs of heating the common premises of the block. Following the change of the compensation mechanism in December 2023, these compensations were allocated according to the assigned vulnerability category and only to those who registered on compensatii.gov.md.

-Most of the cases, the managers of the residential block did not correctly inform the thermo-energy enterprises about the real situation in the block and, thus, some consumers received bills that did not reflect the reality.

-Even if the Methodology foresees the possibility for apartment block managers to apply their own criteria for distributing costs between apartments, this tool is not applied.

-The tariff approved by ANRE for thermal energy in December 2023 was higher than in December 2022 (3 267 lei/Gcal compared to 2 854 lei/Gcal).

Thus, of the 26837 apartments disconnected in Chisinau, about 17 thousand did not receive this year compensation for heat from the Energy Vulnerability Reduction Fund, and the same for 4570 - in Balti.

The meeting noted that there are no legal impediments for the payment of compensations from the moment of registration of the consumer in the Energy Vulnerability Information System. At the same time, those who registered with certain errors that did not allow the payment of compensation according to the degree of vulnerability, can apply to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection to correct the errors and recalculate the bills retroactively.

To this end, energy sector companies have been ordered to be open and cooperate with the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection to correct the erroneous bills.

All consumers who heat their apartments with alternative heating sources are urged to register on www.compensatii.gov.md in order to benefit from the Government compensation. Those who register by the end of January 25 will be able to receive compensation for January.

At the same time, the Energy Minister has asked the sector's enterprises to improve data exchange with electricity and natural gas suppliers and apartment block managers to ensure a higher degree of accuracy in the billing process, including for those who have undertaken measures to insulate their apartments.

The sector's enterprises will also improve the consumer information mechanism, including by increasing the number of staff in consumer information centers.

Housing fund managers are urged to do their job conscientiously and contribute to the inspection of disconnected apartments for correct billing and, where appropriate, to apply their own mechanism for distributing thermal agent among the tenants of the block.

In the longer term, the solution is to install Individual Thermal Points and to change the heat distribution systems to a horizontal one, with individual meters for each apartment, so that thermal comfort can be regulated autonomously and the actual consumption billed. To this end, the National Center for Sustainable Energy was formed, which will invest in energy efficiency in the residential sector starting this year.