The Law on Energy Efficiency, with the amendments voted today in the second reading, provides the Ministry of Energy with new instruments, including financial ones, to realize and encourage investments in energy efficiency measures and introduces concrete targets for energy savings at country level.

Thus, the Energy Efficiency Fund will be set up for the renovation of buildings of public institutions and the residential sector, which account for about 50% of energy consumption and have a high potential for savings.

The Agency for Energy Efficiency will also be transformed from an administrative authority into a public institution and will thus be able to implement a number of energy efficiency programs:

Subsidy program for energy efficient household appliances (currently piloted in partnership with UNDP under the EU-funded "Addressing the Impact of the Energy Crisis in the Republic of Moldova" program) - approx. EUR 3.9 mln for the piloting phase until August 2023, applied to 30 000 households;

Green House Program, which will provide subsidies to households when implementing energy efficiency measures (currently piloted in partnership with UNDP under the same program) - approx. 500 thousand EUR from EU for the piloting phase until August 2023 - 100 - vulnerable households;

Residential energy retrofit program;
Support the development of the biofuels sector;
Programs to renew the existing vehicle fleet by replacing vehicles with internal combustion engines with electric vehicles, as well as the expansion of public electric charging infrastructure and other programs.

Another tool available to the Ministry of Energy will allow accounting for alternative energy efficiency measures in both the public and private sectors. Also to be created is the Energy Management Information Subsystem (EMIS), which is a tool for monitoring the performance of energy and water use and related costs in public buildings and buildings in which public institutions and/or public authorities operate.

Data on buildings' energy and water consumption profile and related costs, collected and processed through EMIS, are made available to the public, and detailed reports on the consumption profile and energy performance of the building are made available to building owners and/or managers in order to take timely and targeted measures to increase energy efficiency.

The document obliges the Government, starting from 2024, to undertake measures that will lead to annual energy savings amounting to 0.8% of the average final energy consumption in the period 2019-2022. In sectors of the national economy such as industry, transportation, agriculture, services and households, energy efficiency measures will be undertaken that will generate annual energy savings of about 244 Gigawatt hours (GWh), (electricity consumption in the Republic of Moldova in 2021 was 3 500 GWh).

The law creates the legal framework for long-term planning, including the development of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan, as a policy document that will set national targets in the field of energy efficiency, renewable energy and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for the 2030 time horizon. At the same time, this will also transpose into national law the Directive (EU) 2018/2002 on energy efficiency, which is part of the EU legislative package - Clean energy for all Europeans.