Fogyasztóvédők Magyarországi Egyesülete

District Heating

In Hungary there are hundreds of thousands of district heated houses.

The Parliament approved at its session the new act on district heat supply on 11 April 2005. The XVIII./2005. Act on District Heat Supply , which was published in the issue 54 (25 April 2005) of Magyar Közlöny, will come into force on 1 July 2005. After its entry into force, the XVIII./1998. Act on District Heat Supply will be simultaneously abrogated.
 

The administrative sphere of authorities in the fields of authorisation procedure, price regulation and customer protection have changed.
 

Customer protection: according to the new legal ordinance, the General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection will be in charge for the investigation of user complaints.
Authorisation: The Hungarian Energy Office authorises the establishment of installations that are generating district heat by co-generating electricity and also issues the licence for them for district heat generation. The rest of the other establishments and operational licences for district heat generating installations, as well as the district heat supply operational licences are issued by the notaries of the local governments.
Price regulation: in case of products (steam and heated water) the law provides the reserve of the administrative price only if it serves the district heat supply of the residents and only in case of larger district heat generators with a heat capacity of at least 50 MW. The municipal corporations of the local governments will henceforward be in charge of pricing and price implementation issues relative to district heat supply.
Metering, settlement and fee payment: besides the conceptual unbundling of users and fee-payers, the law regulates the conditions of metering and settlement as well.
Operation: according to the law, the user, as an owner, is in charge of the operation and maintenance of the user installation. If the supplier owns the installation, then the supplier is bound to fulfil this obligation. The law regulates certain cases of possession and operation as well as the supplier’s obligations.
Reserving the existing status: The law does not include ex post facto provisions and does not touch upon rights of ownership, rights to use or other, already existing rights and obligations.