News

6 November 2023

Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva refers the Minister of Energy Rumen Radev because of the many complaints and signals to the institution from citizens, i.e.  household customers of heating companies, who are obliged by European and Bulgarian legislation to allocate large financial resources to buy remote-reading water meters and heat meters.

“The cost of replacing the heat meter of just one radiator with a new remote-reading device is more than BGN 50 (including: the value of the device, delivery, installation, recording, programming, activation of the radio function, sealing), and for one remote-reading hot water meter it is usually more than BGN 100. Thus, for the re-equipment of a small dwelling with two heating units, the amount exceeds BGN 200”, writes Diana Kovacheva.

Therefore, she urges the government to urgently prepare a financial instrument to fairly support more than 570 households with central heating, because they must install the more expensive remote-reading heat metering devices by 1 January 2027 at the latest. This process is expected to be widespread in 2024, when the second 10-year warranty period of the appliances expires after the introduction of the system for distribution of heat energy.

“Due to the gradual expiry of the warranty periods of heat distribution devices, as well as the validity of the metrological certificates of individual hot water meters, thousands of households have already received mandatory instructions from their heat accountants to replace the old heat distribution devices with new remote- reading devices within 1 month. According to the current legislation, failure to comply with these instructions results in charging excess heat consumption on an “official basis” on the customer’s account and in artificially high bills worth tens and even hundreds of BGN”, the Ombudsman points out.

Prof. Kovacheva adds that these additional costs for households arise against the background of record high regulated prices of heat energy that household customers of heating systems pay during the current price period.

 “I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the obligation to install remote-reading heat metering devices stems from Directive (EU) 2018/844 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018, which has been transposed into Bulgarian law. According to § 75 of the Transitional and Final Provisions to the Act amending and supplementing the Energy Efficiency Act (in force from 12 March 2021), by 1 January 2027, installed heat distribution devices that do not have remote-reading capability should be retrofitted so as to enable remote reading capability or be replaced with remote reading devices. In addition, Article 140, paragraph 7 of the Energy Act requires that when installing new heat distribution devices, they must be remotely readable”, writes Diana Kovacheva.

She recalls that she has already referred the importance of this public problem to the Ministry of Energy during the caretaker government and warns that, according to some estimates, the shift from devices with visual reading to devices with remote reading will cost household customers more than BGN 100 million for the 2021-2026 period, because a total of about 1.276 million heat distributors and about 660,000 individual hot water meters are subject to replacement. She indicates that even then she proposed to the Ministry of Energy, to financially support the household customers of the heating companies, through the funds from European funds managed by it, but unfortunately there is still no response or opinion on the problem raised.

Prof. Kovacheva also recalls another fact – she has proposed various options for equitable support, for example – the financial compensation to be a certain percentage of the total cost that each household customer of a heat supply company makes for retrofitting their property with remote-reading heat distribution devices. And in the case of severely limited support resources, she also indicates as a possible approach that the government should fully reimburse only the costs of retrofitting remote devices incurred by citizens who are entitled to social assistance under Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Social Assistance Act.