Hundreds of thousands of Bucharest residents have had to endure the cold in recent years and have forgotten what it is like to wash with hot water, due to the shortcomings of the centralized heating system.
Professor Cristian Paun from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies criticizes the local authorities’ insistence on maintaining this bankrupt system, leaving people in conditions worthy of a third world country, adevarul.ro writes.
“District heating systems are a relic of communism and collectivism. These systems are a prime example of failure or a prime example of inefficiency and waste of resources. These systems should be abandoned, even if some Western countries are increasingly discussing the introduction of such systems in the major cities of the world (as is the whole green policy of the West). The solution here can only be individual, not collective. The cheapest and most efficient solution is electricity, not gas, hot water or steam (as in New York),” says the professor.
But since electricity is in short supply in Romania, he suggests that we should start producing gas as soon as possible.
“A source of low-cost energy for Romania’s major cities should be created (in the first stage on gas that is available in the Black Sea, as a transitional step to 1-2 nuclear reactors that will produce energy at a minimal cost). In addition, the electric grid will also be able to be used for cooling in summer, which the district heating system in Bucharest does not do today. We use the same grid to cool and heat our homes.”
Moldova, on the other hand, requires builders of new buildings to include only district heating with horizontal distribution in the design. It is also forbidden to abandon centralized heating in order to install autonomous heating.
