Communal apartment for a penny. Why is electricity more profitable than gas and heat in a private house

On 4th of April the President of Belarus signed Decree No. 127 “On the reimbursement of expenses for the electricity supply of an operating housing stock”. The document was adopted in order to encourage citizens to transfer existing individual residential buildings to the use of electric energy for heating, hot water and cooking, as well as to increase the comfort of citizens in rural areas where there is no natural gas and district heating. 

The decree provides for reimbursement to the owners of individual residential buildings at the expense of local budgets of part of the costs incurred to carry out work on additional electricity supply to the houses. The amount of reimbursable funds is planned in the amount of 20 percent of the cost of the work performed, but not more than 40 basic units. At the same time, compensation can be obtained once for one residential building, even if the owner has several of them.

The decree was preceded by the work of a large group of experts under the government of the country. In the Grodno region, this group worked under the leadership of the deputy chairman of the regional executive committee Vladimir Deshko.

- We examined the volumes of housing stock falling under the decree, capacity utilization after commissioning of the first power unit of the Belarusian NPP, possible compensation payments in connection with the use of electricity, saysNatalya Prilepskaya, deputy chairman of the architecture and construction committee of the regional executive committee, head of the transport and communications energy department. - The mechanisms of citizens' appeals to local executive bodies, their line-ups and the provision of reimbursable funds from local budgets have been considered. Separately, applications of citizens who are entitled to additional benefits will be considered. 

That is, in order to receive compensation, homeowners must be included in the relevant lists of executive committees. To this end, the decree introduces the necessary administrative procedures.

According to Natalya Prilepskaya, the claim for a part of the cost of electricity for the operated housing stock may be primarily residents of single-family and blocked residential buildings. The scale of the settlement does not matter.

During the work, reconstruction of power supply networks will be required: design, construction of branches from power lines to the input into a residential building, as well as the installation of intra-house power supply systems. In addition, it will be necessary to purchase equipment and materials necessary for the needs of heating, hot water and cooking. Among the mandatory ones are an electric boiler and convector, an electric water heater, an electric stove. 

There are already achievements in introducing new heating systems for single-family residential buildings in the Grodno region. On the basis of Denshchikov SEC of the Grodno region, within the framework of the implementation of Decree No. 240 “On State Support of Citizens in the Construction (Reconstruction) of Residential Buildings,” OJSC Grodnozhilstroy erected almost two dozen efficiency cottages and prefabricated panel houses for agricultural workers. These houses have full power for heating, hot water and cooking. The price of one kilowatt in such houses is 3 kopecks. Today, in the experimental quarter, large household families begin to celebrate housewarming parties, which have yet to evaluate the benefits of electricity supply at home. 

STAY IN TOUCH

The lists of citizens applying for reimbursement of part of the cost of electricity for the operating housing stock will not include homeowners in the following cases:

1. Reimbursement of part of the expenses was made to the citizen earlier.

2. The residential building is provided with a centralized gas supply or heat supply.

3. The residential building is located in the zone of residence with the right to resettlement or in the zone of subsequent resettlement.

4. The executive committee decided to transfer the operated housing stock from centralized heat supply and hot water supply to an individual one while optimizing heat supply schemes of settlements.

5. A citizen has previously gasified a residential building with the involvement of budgetary funds or soft loans of Belarusbank JSB.