The cold season began with several breakdowns in the heating system, which left thousands of neighborhoods in Bucharest without hot water and heat. This is despite the promises of the Mayor General Nikusor Dan and the management of Termoenergetica that this winter will be better than last winter and the fact that in the last 3 years about 100 km of the heating network have been replaced and two works have been carried out that allow the supply of sectors 2 and 3 from Progresul CET and Northern Zone from Grozăvești CET.

What if these major breakdowns continue? I spoke with the director of Termoenergetica, Adrian Teodorescu.

“The primary network is about 960 km. Of these, less than 100 km have been replaced, and due to the age of the network, there is a risk of damage to those sections that have not been upgraded. For example, yesterday’s accident happened on the III Sud line, a pipeline that is more than 35 years old,” Teodorescu explained.

He continues to say that this winter will be better than last, but every year at the beginning of the heating season there are problems until the system evens out.

“We will have better parameters and less damage. Undoubtedly, every time the system is started, until the system settles, in common words, until it equalizes hydraulically and thermally, failures are inevitable. We had two breakdowns in a row which we fixed in record time with huge efforts, even this breakdown yesterday which is a major breakdown, we are now loading and running Bus I from CET Sud, this afternoon Sectorul 3 will be back to parameters and Sector 2 will have from the suspension – insufficient parameters, I mean the district of Kolentina, Fundeni, which is currently stopped. In two days we will return to normal thermal comfort. So with the investment, those pipes that you talked about have been replaced, the condition of the system has improved a little, but not significantly. Investments in the heating system are investments that last 4-5 years, with constant efforts to radically change this breakdown situation,” Teodorescu said.

The director of “Thermoenergetika” says that from next year, after another 100 km of the primary network will be replaced under the project with European funds, the situation will improve significantly.

“I continue to believe that if the 2024 Major Infrastructure Operational Program proceeds on schedule, the winter of 2024-2025 will be a significant improvement,” Teodorescu explained.

Asked why people are not told first how many days they will be without hot water and heat, and the term in the Termoalert app is extended by two days, then another two or three days, until it reaches a week, then there is hot water for one day, and then she disappears again, Teodorescu says that the dates given are approximate and you can only know exactly when the workers will enter the underground.

“The terms are indicative. I will give an example with yesterday’s breakdown. The water was released from yesterday evening until today, around noon. The repair period is calculated for 48 hours, but our people have not yet been able to go down to the channel where it is 90 degrees to see the extent of the damage and, depending on them, extend the period or not. If we had a failure that spanned 850 meters, obviously the remediation time was extended to a week because people couldn’t know what they were going to find underground. We still have such a situation that we eliminate damage, recharge, and then a new damage occurs and we are forced to turn off the water,” explained the director of Thermoenergetics.

In total, the capital city hall will modernize 210 km of heating networks, worth 260 million euros, of which 200 million euros are non-refundable funds through the Great Operational Program for Infrastructure Development (POIM).

In June, the Metropolitan City Hall began work on the restoration of those 210 km of the heating network, on a section of 6 km, on the bldg. December 1, 1918. In July, the capital city hall opened the second construction site for the restoration of 1.64 km of the primary network in the Militari district, on Apusului street.

This year, Mayor Nikushor Dan has promised that work will begin on 90 km of the 210 km network, with a completion date of late 2024.

At the end of November, the mayor Nikushor Dan announced on his Facebook page that he completed the replacement of the first section of the pipeline with the funds of European funds, the one in the Militari microdistrict, 1.64 km of the primary network.

“The installation works and provides 174 blocks, respectively 9807 apartments in sector 6 (Iuliu Maniu Blvd. – Yarului entrance – Corbilor St. – Apusului St. – Ghirlandei St.). Another 7 facilities for the replacement of the heating system with the funds of POIM are currently open and are at various stages of implementation. In addition to them, three objects are at the authorization stage, and the rest (up to 25) are at the design stage,” Nikushor Dan announced.

The city hall risks losing 260 million euros of European funding from the 360 ​​million total cost of the project if it does not finish at least one section by the end of this year. It remains to be seen what will happen.

In August, half of the residents of Bucharest connected to the heating network were without hot water for 3 weeks due to the modernization of the hostel on Releului Street. Then Nikushor Dan promised that the situation would improve.

“This is a work that has been postponed for a very long time, the hostel on rue Releului, on the main road, which was commissioned in 1968 and for which no more work was carried out, and it was imperative to do it now so as not to be in a situation anymore, as, unfortunately, in the winter of 2020, so that the two sectors 2 and 3 are without hot water in the winter. Therefore, we have decided to carry out this work now, in parallel with the scheduled shutdown of CET Sud for major repairs. When this work is completed, we will be able to supply sectors 2 and 3 from CET Progresu,” Nikushor Dan said in August.

Also at that time, works were carried out in Sector 1, which allowed to ensure the supply of Sector 1 from CET Grozăvești.

Bucharest district heating system, losses of almost 40% in 2022

According to the energy balance approved by the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest, in the district heating system in Bucharest in 2022, the heat loss was about 40%, which is almost 3% more than in 2021. Of the approximately 3.9 million gigacalories injected into the mainnet, approximately 1.22 million were lost. Damages are covered by the municipality.

The economic director of “Thermoenergetika” Maria Mitran in September 2023, when the energy balance was approved, explained that the percentage losses increased due to the fact that in the last 3 years consumption decreased by 18% due to the increase in average temperature, thus the heating season in 2022 decreased by two months, April and October, respectively, as well as due to a decrease in consumption as a result of heat treatment of blocks.

• “The first conclusion of this analysis is that during the period 2020-2022, heat energy losses in the primary network increased from 28.91% to 31.54%, and the amount of heating agent supplied from the transport network decreased by 17.86%.
• Considering the volume of transited energy, the level of losses is high and leads to negative consequences from a technical and economic point of view. The main cause of thermal energy losses in the first circuit is the age of the pipes that make up the network (65% of them are older than 25 years), the main consequence is the large number of breakdowns that occur (2,241 breakdowns were eliminated on the first circuit in 2022) and damage classical pipe insulation. (…)
• Secondary network losses increased from 11.39% to 12.73%. The main cause of thermal energy losses is the age of the pipelines (almost 50% of them are over 25 years old),” the report says.

To reduce energy losses, it is recommended to start a program of reconstruction of primary heat networks with their replacement with pre-insulated pipes equipped with an automatic loss detection system.

It can be estimated that rebuilding the entire transport system will be a project that will last at least 20 years and cost at least 1 billion euros. Calculations show that resizing and replacing approx. 80% of the total volume of transport pipelines are over 20 years old, if we take into account the actual costs of heating agent due to the reduction of the maximum hourly demand for thermal energy,” the document states.

Another 400 million euros will be needed to restore the distribution system.

In 2020, the district heating system in Bucharest had a heat loss of 36.63%.

How many subscribers does the centralized heating system serve in Bucharest?

According to available data, Termoenergetica supplies thermal energy for 10,032 owner/tenant associations of 8,091 residential buildings, for 74 dormitories and 313 houses/houses, representing approximately 1,170,000 inhabitants. Of the total technical energy supplied by Thermoenergy, population consumption is 92.21%.

Installations of a centralized heating system in Bucharest consist of:

• 45 district power plants and one district thermal power plant;
• primary heat networks – 423.27 km of track / 851.84 km of pipeline;
• technical points – PT (646 pcs.) and thermal modules – MT (308 pcs.);
• secondary heat networks – 702.89 km of track/2,763 km of heat pipes and 49.58 km of track/198.34 km of KT connected with distribution pipes;

Termoenergetica is the administrator of the largest heating system in Romania.

From the point of view of the age of the heating network pipes, the situation is as follows:

• of the 851.84 km of pipes in the primary hot water transport network, more than 65% are over 25 years old, 10% between 20 and 25 years old, 11% between 10 and 20 years old and only about 14% less than 10 years old.
• of the 2,763 km of pipes in the secondary network, more than 45% are over 25 years old, 14.4% are between 20 and 25 years old, 23% are between 10 and 20 years old, and about 17% are less than 10 years old.

What network modernization works have been carried out over the past 3 years

In 2023, General Mayor Nikushor Dan promised that about 50 km of the trunk network will be modernized.

In 2022, 26 km of the primary network and about 52 km of the secondary network were replaced.

In 2021, the capital city hall managed to change only 20 kilometers of the primary heating network.