Parliament postpones the obligation to install heat distributors

The maximum deadline regarding the fulfillment of the owners' obligation to install heat distributors in residential buildings and apartments has been extended until December 31, 2024, following a bill approved yesterday by the Chamber of Deputies, as the decision-making body.

The normative act that was voted by the deputies with 282 votes "for" and only one vote against establishes that in the condominium type buildings connected to the centralized supply system with thermal energy or equipped with their own local source of thermal energy production, in the system of horizontal distribution, it is mandatory to install consumption measurement systems until December 31, 2024 for the individualization of energy consumption for heating/cooling and domestic hot water at the level of each apartment or space with a destination other than residential.

The future law also contains measures for granting temporary support related to the year 2024 to categories of vulnerable people, for the compensation, starting on April 15, 2024, of the cost related to the purchase and installation of technical systems for determining individual thermal energy consumption, in buildings of condominium type connected to the centralized supply system with thermal energy. According to the law initiated by the PNL, PSD and UDMR parliamentarians, vulnerable people will benefit from support to compensate the cost of purchasing and installing thermal energy cost distribution systems, in the form of payments through the postal order service.

The granting of this support will begin for the categories of eligible persons in the continuation of the support measure for the compensation of the energy price, through the use of energy cards, the validity of which is to be extended until March 31, 2024.

By way of exception, in order to compensate the cost of the purchase and installation of thermal energy cost distribution systems, the support granted to vulnerable persons is in the nominal value of a maximum of 750 lei, it is granted per home/vulnerable household, only after the installation by an authorized company of some thermal energy cost distribution systems, including taps for regulating thermal energy consumption, based on the installation report and the invoice and can be used until December 27, 2024.

The budget of the temporary measure to provide the necessary support to the vulnerable population to compensate for the cost of the purchase and installation of individual thermal energy consumption distribution systems, granted through energy cards, will be 375 million lei, the source being the Modernization Fund.

The draft law will be submitted to President Klaus Iohannis for promulgation, if it is not contested within the legal term at the Constitutional Court of Romania. Taking into account the almost unanimous vote given by the deputies, it is hard to believe that the said act will be sent to the CCR.