Only three months remain until the final deadline set by the Thermal Energy Market Act, after which all buildings with more than 70 apartments that have not installed heat energy meters will be in violation.
According to data from ista, one of the leading global suppliers of products and services for increasing energy efficiency, every tenth apartment building in Croatia will be in violation in a few months. For apartment buildings with fewer than 70 apartments, the deadline for installation is the end of 2016.
– According to our estimates, between 20 and 25 percent of the total number of buildings covered by the energy efficiency regulation have installed meters. At this moment, we can confidently say that a significant number of buildings will not meet the conditions set by the law when the new year begins – explained Ulrich Fischer, regional director of ista Croatia.
Whether inspectors will conduct oversight and how rigorously they will impose fines is hard to say, but the fines stipulated by law are not small – ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 kuna. Given the practice that heat meters are not installed during the heating season, most co-owners have little time left.
– The installation of heat meters should not be viewed as an additional cost imposed by the law, as the devices improve energy efficiency and help consumers save energy and costs in the long term. By installing meters, heating costs for the building can be reduced by up to 30 percent on average – explained Ulrich Fischer, regional director of ista Croatia.
Ista, whose headquarters are in Germany, manages 49 million energy consumption measurement devices worldwide, which are installed in about 12 million residential and commercial units. In Croatia, the company is experiencing rapid market growth, partly due to the recognition of German quality by Croatian citizens.
