The proposed budget for the Rabla pilot program for the replacement of rudimentary thermal capacities amounts to 500 million lei, and funding is granted for devices with a minimum efficiency of 80% and low pollutant emissions, the Minister of Environment, Water and Forests, Mircea Fechet, announced on Wednesday in a press conference.

“For the first time, we are launching in public consultation a financing program that aims to replace old stoves, those with inefficient efficiency, as I said earlier, with new ones, because there are technologies that can increase this efficiency to over 80%. We await with great interest the contribution of salesmen, installers of such equipment, town halls in the country and ultimately any specialist who can give us feedback. We want this program to reduce Romanians’ heating expenses, just as we want in addition, let’s have cleaner air. The program is a pilot, I want to specify this once again, and it is initially addressed to the communes in the 28 counties of the country, in the mountain area, as defined by the legislation in force, respectively by the Law of the Mountain. We know that the winters are longer and harder there. We address the communes, but probably also other types of administrative-territorial units, such as villages belonging to cities and municipalities. We will make available, from the AFM budget, 500 million lei for these heating devices to begin with. The proposal I am making today is to finance 70% of the costs of such a stove, but no more than 10,000 lei per person,” said Fechet, according to Agerpres.

The competent minister added that the estimate is to finance a number of 50,000 stoves through the new program.

“We hope to succeed in having such applicants in each of the approximately one thousand town halls that we have identified as eligible. We propose, if we consider that we finance the maximum amount per applicant, namely 10,000 lei, to finance 50,000 stoves, either on wood, on pellets or on briquettes. There is specific legislation that defines all these types of heating, but the main claim of the Ministry of the Environment is that these equipments comply with the eco-design directive standards. That it assumes that the efficiency is at least 80% and this assumes that particle emissions are below 40 grams for each cubic meter of solid fuel, volatile organic compound emissions are below 120 grams per the same unit of measure, carbon monoxide below 1,500 mg and emissions of nitrogen oxides below 300 mg per cubic meter. I remind you that a main problem of Romania is related to the excesses of nitrogen oxides and particles. Anyone who will be interested in this program will get a one-time funding, of a maximum of 10,000 lei,” said he.

According to the technical data presented by the Minister of the Environment, the stoves will have a nominal power that the beneficiary chooses, “but it must be a minimum of eight kilowatts and a maximum of 35 kilowatts.”