The general mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, announced on Tuesday that the works will soon start within five segments of the district heating network, totaling 53 kilometers, their value being of 300 million lei, from amounts coming from the local budget, according to Mediafax. At the same time, Nicuşor Dan said that ELCEN will be taken over by PMB between May and June, the company being engulfed into Termoenergetica.

On Tuesday, works started on a 13 km section of the Ferentari area. The other sections are in the Pantelimon area – 12 km, in the Colentina area – 9 km, in the Victoriei area -11 km and in the Berceni area – 8 km.

At the beginning of next week, PMB will launch in public debate the specifications for the other 4 sections, which will be put up for grabs in an auction.

“These are some key areas for what we want to do starting next year, for which we have European funding of 300 million euro. In addition to the European money, we have the Government’s promise for another 200 million euro, money from PNRR, and it gave us another 320 million lei at the end of December. We intend to take over ELCEN, to merge these two companies (with Termoenergetica – e.n.) And thus to have a single responsible for everything that means district heating system – production and distribution. We want five sections to be ready this year, so that we can start from next spring the sections for which European money will be used,” said Nicuşor Dan, according to Digi24.

This year’s works represent about 5% of the 1,000 km district heating network. The City Hall plans to rehabilitate 210 km, or 21% of the network, with European funds.