Energy Minister Dorin Jungietu visited the Chisinau state enterprise Termoelectrica on August 11, 2025. It is the largest producer of electric and thermal energy in the country and supplier of heat in the district heating system of Chisinau mun. Chisinau.
At the moment, “Termoelectrica” specialists are working at 7 sites in different sectors of Chisinau, where maintenance and modernization of heating networks are carried out. This is part of the investment program aimed at reducing losses. Already at this stage, even with outdated networks, losses in the pipelines have been reduced from 3 million cubic meters in 2003 to 600 thousand m3 in 2024.
The Minister touched upon the topic of increasing generating capacities. Currently, JSC “Termoelectrica” has two combined heat and power plants: CHPP-1 (located in the central part of the city) and CHPP-2 (in the Ciocani sector). The long-standing plans include the construction of two new CHPPs with a total electric capacity of about 55 MW and a heat capacity of at least 43 Gcal/h. As it turned out, the offers submitted by the participants of the international tender are currently undergoing an evaluation procedure.
Recall that initially the tender for the construction of two small CHPPs in Chisinau was announced back in December 2022. However, at that time the tender was not held due to the lack of interest on the part of the contractors. In October 2024, a second tender was announced, with four companies from Turkey, Hungary and Azerbaijan. It was expected that the results of the tender will be announced by February-March 2025. But the winner has not been determined so far …
Dorin Jungietu also discussed with the leadership of Termoelectrica the necessity to intensify the implementation of the large-scale project “Optimization of the centralized heat supply system in Chisinau”. For its realization, Moldova is granted 326 million euros on the basis of a loan agreement. The Parliament ratified the relevant agreement in January 2025. Out of the total cost of the project, a loan of 143.5 million euros is allocated by the EBRD, the rest comes from a loan of the European Investment Bank and grants from the European Union. The project is implemented by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) with the assistance of the Moldovan Ministry of Energy, and the functions of the executor are entrusted to the enterprise “Termoelectrica”.
According to the authors of the project, the construction of individual heating points will reduce costs by about 10%, while the implementation of an internal horizontal system of heat carrier distribution in multi-storey buildings will save up to 30% in consumers’ bills.
The project “Optimization of the centralized heat supply system in Chisinau” envisages radical modernization. The prospective plans look like this. In 88% of the houses connected to the centralized heating system, 2510 individual heating points (IHP) will be installed. It is planned to realize 57 pilot projects on thermal insulation of blocks, reconstruction of heating networks and construction of two new pumping stations. Most importantly, it is planned that 60% of apartment buildings in Chisinau (1,665 residential high-rise buildings) will switch to horizontal heat carrier distribution.
As it is known, all new high-rise buildings in Chisinau are built only with horizontal heat carrier system. Modernization, which is being talked about now, implies the transfer of old high-rise buildings, built 40-50 years ago and earlier, from the existing vertical system of heat supply to apartments to the new horizontal one.
In the case of horizontal distribution, vertical risers made of metal pipes in apartments are replaced by horizontal risers made of plastic. An individual heat meter is installed for each consumer and a thermoregulator, which allows to set the temperature in the apartment at will.
“Termoelectrica” has been implementing such projects since about 2015. So far, it has managed to modernize several dozen houses in Chisinau. The loan received by Moldova is intended to speed up the process.
