The financing contracts with ELCEN were signed in December 2024, but the company cannot proceed with these projects if the Bucharest City Hall (PMB) does not pay its current debt of over 1 billion lei to ELCEN, claims the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja.
The Ministry of Energy has made some clarifications regarding the projects submitted by the Municipality of Bucharest for the rehabilitation of the district heating system, in the context of recent public information regarding accessing European funds for the modernization of the district heating system of the Municipality of Bucharest.
“The Municipality of Bucharest has submitted two projects within the two calls for funding for projects to rehabilitate district heating systems in large cities, managed by the Ministry of Energy, one project per each call for projects, respectively: Type A – for integrated SACET-type systems and Type B for systems with production separated from the transport and distribution of the thermal agent. Regarding the project submitted under the call for type A projects, the Municipality of Bucharest did not demonstrate eligibility for type A projects, as provided for in the Applicant Guide, in the sense that it did not prove that it meets the conditions of the Applicant Guide, Chapter 1.8 State aid”, a statement from the ministry states.
Regarding the project submitted by the Municipality of Bucharest under the call for type B projects, the reasons for rejecting the funding application concerned aspects such as: the project was submitted without a decision approving the updated budget; the non-refundable financial aid requested was higher than the threshold indicated by the guide; the feasibility study submitted together with the funding application indicates as ”Investment Owner” and ”Beneficiary” – Compania Municipală Termoenergetica București SA and not the funding applicant, namely the Municipality of Bucharest.
Another reason for the rejection of the funding application is that the applicant did not provide the Annual Tariff Evolution Plan (according to the Cost-Benefit Analysis), approved by the General Council of Bucharest, for the project for which the feasibility study was required, according to Agerpres.
“We would like to point out that the evaluations within these calls were carried out by external experts, and the Ministry of Energy was in constant contact with all applicants, requesting clarifications for the problems that arose. The Ministry of Energy cannot be held responsible for the quality of the documentation submitted by each applicant individually, and the fact that there are a number of contracts already signed for the type B call (Cluj-Napoca, Constanța, Craiova, Suceava, etc.) demonstrates that this call was accessible to all applicants with eligible projects,” the statement added.
At the same time, for type A projects, the technical evaluation is underway, and the signing of the contracts is expected on January 23, 2025.
“I feel compelled to return to a topic that I have previously addressed, including in yesterday’s press conference: the issue of the district heating system in the Capital. There are funds to finance projects to modernize this system, which Bucharest residents are waiting for every day, but the City Hall of the Capital must do its job. Although PMB submitted one project per call, after multiple public requests that we expressed last summer, both projects had serious eligibility problems due to improperly prepared documentation,” said Sebastian Burduja, quoted in the press release.
According to him, the evaluations are carried out by external consultants, precisely to ensure transparency and professionalism.
“I am making a new appeal to the mayor of the capital: there are still 50 million euros left in the type B call, money that can still be attracted for the rehabilitation of the district heating system in Bucharest. The city hall must urgently redo the documentation and come back with an eligible application. It is unacceptable that the largest city in Romania, the main economic engine of the country, cannot attract this money. Moreover, I would like to point out that the Ministry of Energy has managed to attract 361 million euros for the rehabilitation of the 3 CHPs in Bucharest, which are from the 1960s-1970s and are in great need of modernization. We have already signed the financing contracts with ELCEN in December 2024, but the company cannot move forward with these projects if PMB does not pay its current debt of over 1 billion lei to ELCEN,” Burduja added.