Methodology for calculating payment for thermal energy in a multi-storey residential building

Abstract

The regulatory framework for the commercial metering of heat energy consumption in residential buildings, as set out in the Law of Ukraine “On Commercial Metering of Heat Energy and Water Supply,” establishes an obligation to equip buildings with commercial heat energy meters. At the same time, the provisions of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Housing and Communal Services’ stipulate that co-owners of multi-apartment residential buildings are obliged to participate in covering the costs of thermal energy not only according to actual consumption, as recorded by individual (distribution) metering devices, but also in proportion to the costs of heating common areas (corridors, stairwells, lifts, etc.) and operating the building's internal heating system. The scientific work examines methods for the technical implementation of individual heat energy metering, analyses the features of using distribution devices in buildings, and identifies their limitations. A method is proposed for converting an existing single-pipe vertical unregulated heating system into a two-pipe horizontal regulated system with apartment metering devices, which is relevant for more than 80% of multi-storey residential buildings constructed in the second half of the 20th century. A unified methodology for calculating and distributing thermal energy between apartments in a residential building with different levels of insulation of enclosing structures is proposed, which allows for maximum fairness and transparency in the calculation of payments for thermal energy, significantly reduce unproductive losses and provides for the determination of reduction coefficients that will serve as an effective incentive for the implementation of one of the most important national tasks – reducing energy consumption. In addition, the proposed methodology significantly simplifies the development of machine calculation algorithms, ensures a unified approach, significantly reduces labour costs and data processing time, eliminates errors at all stages of calculation, enables software control of the correctness of input data by operators, and allows data to be entered using communication tools.