Nicușor Dan wants to say “Farewell!” to air conditioners in Bucharest. The capital’s mayor is considering a technology that works successfully in other European countries.
According to the mayor, this would be a necessary measure in the warmer days, but the system would take around two years to set up and would require a major financial investment.
No more air conditioners?
It might seem a bit unusual, but several European countries have successfully replaced air conditioners with a cool new method. They pump cold water into radiators to keep homes cool. Nicușor Dan recently shared that he’s considering this approach, though it would take a little more than two years to implement. Plus, Bucharest residents would also have to swap out their current radiators with special ones to vent the chill generated by the cold water.
The discussion came against the backdrop of this summer’s heatwave, with hundreds of thousands of Bucharest residents affected by temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius outside. In many of the homes, temperatures exceeded 30 degrees Celsius, leading to an overload on the emergency medical system. Moreover, due to residents overusing air conditioners, the power grid was also overloaded.
“There is the idea of supplying through the same system we use for hot water and heat, to supply cold. A lot of people use air conditioning, the question of whether the grid can handle it. So, we’re just now asking that question whether it’s worth – for summers that are probably going to be this hot – to do that.
We are at the idea stage, i.e. last summer, two years ago, we didn’t ask ourselves this question because it wasn’t a necessity,” Nicușor Dan.
What ELCEN director says about the radiator cooling system
Beyond the statements made by Nicușor Dan, ELCEN’s general director draws attention to some details. Although the radiator cooling system works in other countries, it is important to note that the investment for this project would be huge. It also could not be realized in the near future.
“In the future, trigeneration, i.e. cooling, could also be done. There is a need to invest in this, there is a need to modernize the system. Unfortunately, it’s at the idea stage and I don’t realistically know when it can be done, because for the time being we are still in the logic of debts, of penalties, we haven’t yet reached zero. Even today ELCEN has a billion lei to collect from Termoenergetica.
If you ask me, frankly, the earliest scenario, if the City Hall were to get to work tomorrow, would be in two years. It needs a feasibility study, it needs a tender, actually a tender for the study, a tender for the works. So, just the two tenders take a year,” said Claudiu Crețu.
