Some Sofia residents received twice as high heating bills for February. "Toplofikatsiya Sofia" explained this with the sub-zero temperatures in February and the many times higher consumption.
Plamen Dimitrov lives in a building with a CHP and although he also has an air conditioner, he has been heating with heating for years. Last month, however, he paid the highest bill he had for this heating season.
"174 leva, and last year my highest bill was 120 and a few leva", he shared. The increase is due to lower temperatures in February, and more than 60% of heating subscribers paid a bill of over 100 leva, according to data from "Toplofikatsiya Sofia".
According to the company's data, cited by Bulgaria ON AIR, the highest bills for this February were paid by only 8.88% of subscribers with bills of over 300 leva.
However, the bills may continue to grow if the proposal of the Ministry of Energy is adopted, according to which consumers will pay a 30% fixed building installation fee, instead of a percentage of the total energy consumed, as is the case now.
"It cannot be the same for everyone, since each building installation has its own specifics, which in practice is not a percentage of the total energy. This is a set of factors that were previously taken into account by the formula used to calculate this energy, and in practice, where there was more use, the share of the building installation was smaller and vice versa, and now if it happens for all 30%, that is, each of the parties inside the building, users and non-users, one of them will be harmed. It is not fair, because at the same time it is not true either way, the formula gives different results", said the chairman of the Association of District Heating Companies Kremen Georgiev.
The introduction of a fixed fee for building installation may also lead to higher equalization bills for heating in the transitional months than those in January.
"If it is fixed at 30%, in such months some users may receive higher bills than in January, purely mathematically," Georgiev considered.
Although the public discussion of the proposal is in early April, Plamen is categorical that if a building installation fee of 30% is introduced, he will switch to another type of heating in the winter.