Management Plan of the Board of RADET was approved by the General Council of Bucharest Municipality (General Council), Tuesday, in an ad-hoc meeting called by general councilors after had been rejected in the extraordinary meeting on Monday. At the request of General Councilors, a meeting was convened arguing that approval of the management plan of the Council of Administration (CA) of the Autonomous Thermal Energy Distribution (RADET) is “in the interest of citizens.”
The plan was rejected on Monday in a special meeting, following which the Chairman of the Board at RADET, Dumitraşcu Gabriel, announced his resignation, along with other members of the Board. Dumitraşcu added that in winter is possible that several districts of Bucharest will remain without heat.
“For some areas of the capital there is a risk that in winter heating cannot be distributed. The most exposed areas are in the east of Bucharest: Colentina, Fundeni, Pantelimon, Mrs. Ghica”, Dumitraşcu said, adding that this risk exists even for central areas of Bucharest.
He also said that he proposed an action plan to solve critical problems, which would require investment of about 10 million lei.
“As an immediate action plan, we proposed the implementation of a program for this summer, critical issues were identified that require an effort of about 10 million lei, not a considerable effort, we started this program and we approached about a quarter of it. It’s about repairs in critical areas. We have identified the source for the partial renouncement of account garnishment, we found understanding at ELCEN’ CA and I hope this program will continue because Bucharest needs to be warm in winter”, Dumitraşcu said.
“Things are extremely serious. The centralized hot water supply of Bucharest is oversized and old, with very low technical yields. The system was designed in the late 50s, when massive industrialization came to Bucharest, which is why big CHP appeared in Bucharest. (…) After 1990 the big industry has disappeared, and the installed thermal power capacities are oversized for Bucharest needs. In 1990, in RADET system were injected about 10 million Gcal, in 2014 the amount was about 35% of what the system had as input back then”, said Gabriel Dumitraşcu on June 11.
Experts say that demand would be 1,900 Gcal/h, he said, according to Mediafax. Also, more than 80% of RADET’s managed networks are over 30 years old, drew attention the Administration representative. Dumitraşcu says is necessary a heating system that meets al least the needs of a generation and “finish with doing poor job”.
“We try to perform in a competition with a Dacia car before the Revolution. You can never win a competition”, says Dumitraşcu.
He stressed that, in winter, Bucharest faces a crisis in terms of heat supply for 1.5 million inhabitants. Due to insufficient funds, approved/allocated from the local budget by the City Council of Bucharest in the last four years, the execution of investments has been suspended since the end of 2012. Thus, RADET last year received 4.3 million lei for investments, in comparison to 11.9 million lei in 2013 and compared to 125.9 million lei allocated for investment in 2009.
CA President of RADET cited studies claiming the cost requirements for rehabilitation of transport system would be 360 million euros and other 850 million euros for scaling and upgrading of CHPs units. Since 2014, Electrocentrale Bucharest has established account garnishments amounting to 100% on all RADET accounts, so that all the money RADET collects goes to the creditor.
According to the head of RADET CA, the biggest problem is the debts of the utility. RADET ended 2014 with debts of 3.83 billion lei, of which the largest part (3.6 billion lei) are to Elcen. At the end of 2013, RADET debts amounted to 3.51 billion lei. RADET recorded last year a loss of 320.1 million lei, compared to a net loss of 289.4 million lei in 2013.
The Government approved, on 27 March 2014, the memorandum regarding the merger between RADET, subordinated to City Hall, and Electrocentrale Bucharest (ELCEN), provider of heat for RADET, which belongs to the Ministry of Energy. RADET is the largest debtor of ELCEN. Oprescu declared last December that the merger will be achieved “somewhere in March 2015”, and in February this year said that ELCEN doesn’t want and never intended a merger with RADET.
