Heat supplies were restored in Rokytnice v Orlických horách on Tuesday evening after four days. The company Ekoenergy Moravia agreed on this with the representatives of the town. About 1000 people have been without heat since Saturday.
The company stopped deliveries on Saturday because of a dispute with the town over the price of heat. About 350 households, a school, and a social care institution were without heat in the city of two thousand.
The heat started to flow again in Rokytnice after 9 pm on Tuesday. The agreement is valid until the end of the year. “We have agreed on the terms of heat supply. I’m letting it go immediately. We will fine-tune the details of the new contract with the town by the end of this year,” Luděk Koch from the supplying company Ekoenergy Moravia told Právo on Tuesday evening, whose words were confirmed by Rokytnice councilor Jiří Štěpán (ČSSD).
Rokytnice was bathed in sunshine during the day on Tuesday, but the temperature outside reached only nine degrees. People were a little warmer in the apartments in the two housing estates, but the radiators were cold, and the water was only hard in the Rokytnice nine-year school and the social welfare institute.
“The sun is warming up, and we can bask in front of the houses. We are taking it as training for worse times,” a group of people in front of a block of flats commented on the situation.
The town, which needed to provide heat for the people, and the contractor, who had no choice but to heat the house, initially found themselves in a stalemate. “Our boilers are on credit, and we have to heat to pay back the credit. We operate around 20 boiler houses in the country. Problems only arose in Rokytnice, where we were accused of using residents and children as hostages,” Luděk and Dana Koch from Ekoenergy Moravia described their view.
According to Rokytnice mayor Luboš Michalec (independent), the situation escalated at the end of September when the contractor said he had empty tanks and pockets to buy fuel. “The town was prepared for this; after that, it secured the fuel. The moment this happened, the heat supply contract was effectively terminated,” said Michalec, who categorically denied that the cold in residents’ homes was the city’s fault.