For more than 30 years, there have been no substantial financing programmes dedicated to the residential sector in Moldova, and this lack of support has led to major difficulties in mobilising construction companies to meet the current demands for renovation and energy efficiency, said Ion Muntean, director of the National Centre for Sustainable Energy.
“We believe it is essential to have an open dialogue and mutual understanding between the public and private sectors. This is the only way we can ensure the continuity of the processes we have started and achieve the results we are aiming for”, Muntean said at the conference “Regional approach: Chisinau 2025”, organised by Energynomics.
Recent steps include the legislative elevation of the Energy Efficiency Fund to the status of a Government-approved funding programme. This decision allows more efficient centralisation of financial resources allocated to projects in this area. In addition, the new draft law proposes the establishment of a guarantee fund for loans granted to owners’ associations in apartment blocks. However, there are important challenges, i.e. the beneficiaries face difficulties in covering the 30% contribution foreseen in the financing programme.
“The most costly project exceeds MDL 24 million and the contribution of more than MDL 7 million is a considerable burden for a homeowners’ association. They face obstacles in accessing bank loans,” he added.
Discussions with the banking sector have confirmed this problem, and the authorities have come up with proposals to make it more flexible. Among them is the abolition of mandatory energy audits for buildings smaller than 250 square metres, as these procedures are costly and time-consuming and discourage energy efficiency work. Another important change is that, under the new law, only municipalities will be obliged to draw up energy and climate action plans, not all administrative-territorial units as before. To ensure effective monitoring of results, the government has approved the concept of an energy efficiency information system, which will include a subsystem dedicated to measuring energy savings in residential buildings.
“We started from the premise that beneficiaries should be able to recoup their contribution in three to four years to incentivise participation. Unfortunately, the major challenge remains the governance of housing associations. Only less than 30% of them are reorganised according to current legislation, and those that are functioning are generally new associations that do not yet require major investments,” Muntean concluded.
The conference “Regional Approach Chisinau 2025” was organised by Energynomics with the support of our partners Elektra Renewable Support, Adrem Asset Management, Boglight Gaz Moldova, Siemens Energy, Simtel, SolaX Power, SolarToday.