The Ministry of Energy and the Intelligent Energy Association (AEI) are starting the project Warm Houses for needy families, which is aimed at this winter and the holiday period and would cover at least 1,000 households with “everything necessary for heating this winter,” stated, on Monday, at a press conference, the Minister of Energy, Sebastian Burduja.

“Today’s subject is an important one for hundreds of thousands of Romanians. There are Romanians who are still struggling with poverty and energy poverty. Therefore, I am very happy that today (Monday, e.n.) I can announce that, together with Mr. Dumitru Chisăliță (president of AEI, e.n.) and the Intelligent Energy Association, the Ministry of Energy sign a partnership to combat energy poverty. This partnership aims at two main directions that will materialize into two projects of major importance for Romania. First of all, the Warm Houses project aims this winter and the holiday period. We thought of challenging the Romanians so that during the holidays they would think of the needy and, if they generally sent donations of clothes, toys or other things of this kind, they could send wood for heating, for the winter this”, mentioned Sebastian Burduja, at the press conference on the occasion of the launch of the Partnership for Combating Energy Poverty, according to Agerpres.

According to him, there are more than two thirds of households in Romania that do not have access to any other source of heating than firewood.

He emphasized that approximately one million lei will represent the support for the more than 1,000 households, with everything that means providing firewood for an entire winter, “money we want to have from donations”.

“Beneficiaries are chosen based on income, based on the degree of community marginalization, distance from main access roads, distance from supply sources, etc. So, there will be a transparent list of criteria and associations with which we are consulting to identify these households,” Burduja said.

The Minister of Energy mentioned that the second medium- and long-term prospective project refers to those households that do not have electricity, being tens of thousands of households in this situation.

“There are houses where Romanian children are still studying in Romania in 2023 by candlelight. However, this situation cannot continue. Together with the Intelligent Energy Association, we will make a national electronic register of all households that do not have access to electricity. We will a map at the level of Romania with all these households and we will launch the challenge to civil society, to all Romanians, to the private sector, to adopt a house and turn on the light for these Romanians who do not have access to the most basic resource, the energy resource, electricity,” added Burduja.

He specified that more than 52,000 households in the country did not have electricity, according to the latest study carried out by the Ministry of Energy based on data collected from the county councils, from the town halls, in 2018.