The residents of the Arad town of Pecica are pinning their hopes on heating their homes with geothermal water, after the City Hall started drilling and has already reached the required depth in the case of one of the two wells undegoing works.
The mayor of the city, Pentru Antal, said on Monday that one of the wells being drilled had already reached a depth of approximately 800 meters and water with a temperature of 47 degrees Celsius was found, while the second well was at a depth of 500 meters, and in a few days it will be possible to extract thermal water from here as well.
The mayor specified that the hot water will be used to heat some public buildings, in the first phase, but only from the fall of next year, when the thermal plant will be completed.
“Through this project, in the first phase, we will be able to heat 13 public buildings, including schools and kindergartens. The project is worth 26 million lei and will allow us to reduce our costs with thermal energy by more than 50%. Next fall we will start heating with geothermal water, and in five years we will also connect homes. Also next year, we will also start a project to develop a thermal pool, using the water from these two wells that we are working on now,” said the mayor, according to Agerpres.
The locals are anxious to be able to benefit from this project financed with European funds, saying that now it is increasingly difficult for them to pay their gas bills or buy wood.
“This geothermal plant needed to be built for a very long time. 50 years ago, I had a brother in Nădlac who was connected to a thermal water system, and I was envious of him for staying with the windows open when it was minus 20 degrees outside. He had no emotions with the bills, the water came from the ground and was unlimited. I also visit a lot Hungary, and when you cross the border, every village uses thermal water at least for the pools. Why is it possible for them and not for us? We had to have this unit a lot time ago,” said a local.
The project obtained European funding through the Large Infrastructure Operational Program 2014-2020, and the consortium that won the tender to carry out the works is made up of four companies from Romania and Hungary.
“We really want our homes to be connected to this centralized system, because we can’t even afford wood at current prices. Gas and electricity are also very expensive. The town hall told us that in the first years they will could only heat public institutions with water from the ground, because that’s the European project, and only after connect us, too. We’ve been waiting for such a project for a long time, as we’ll be able to heat ourselves much cheaper. Here in the city, a lot of people want to we connect to the new unit,” said a local woman.
According to the project of the centralized thermal energy production and distribution system in Pecica, after the completion of the drilling, a thermal power plant will be installed and a distribution network with a length of 1.33 kilometers will be created. The plant will be located in the center of the city, in a park.
The completion of works and the commissioning of the plant should take place in December 2023 at the latest, but the local administration and the contractor estimate that the system will be operational in the autumn of next year.