Consumers from the Avtokomanda neighborhood, connected to ESM Energy, who until now had heating 24 hours a day, will now receive heating from 6 a.m. to 22 p.m., as the whole city is supplied, and the average daily temperature in the premises will range from 20 to 21 degrees, as is prescribed in the network rules approved by the Regulatory Commission.

ESM says that it is about 2000 Energy consumers, out of a total of 4, who have been transferred to the ESM Supply network since February 000, while for the other 1, who have not been transferred, technical preparations will be made in the next period for next heating season to receive heating like the rest of the city.

After the introduced change, as claimed by ESM, the bills in the Autokomanda neighborhood will not increase as speculations appeared, and the bills of schools, kindergartens, business facilities and other institutions will decrease by up to 45 percent.

The reason for the introduced changes is that ESM Energetica will put out of use the old steam boilers, which do not have the technical possibility of daily extinguishing, and therefore the heating was supplied 24 hours with enormous gas consumption. The boilers were built at a different time and for a different purpose, which was the supply of technological steam to the production metallurgical facilities in the "Zhelezara" complex, and for those reasons the delivery of thermal energy through them with these gas prices is unsustainable. Due to the old technology, these boilers significantly pollute the environment during operation - ESM explains.

From there, they add that if the same way of working had been continued, with these energy prices, it would have cost an additional 15 million euros from the budget per heating season.

This means that either all the citizens of R. North Macedonia will pay through the budget for a certain number of consumers to receive heating 24 hours a day, or the bills of ALL consumers in Skopje will be significantly higher - claims the company.

Of the 62 consumers in Skopje, which include households, business facilities and institutions, 000 are supplied through the newly established companies ESM Production, Distribution and Supply, i.e. through the main city network previously operated by BEG, 57 consumers are supplied through the subsidiary of ESM-Energetica and 500 through the Skopje Sever heating plant.

It should be taken into account that if there are no funds from the budget to support AD ESM in this energy crisis, it may happen that there is no heating at all, and therefore a rational use of resources is necessary.