New loan project to help households save on heating costs
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Author: Story by Liene Veide
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development together with TBC Bank began offering loans to Georgian households in October 2009, in a bid to reduce customers’ energy bills and help them purchase energy efficient household products.
The TBC has been issuing such loans since 2007, but until Fall 2009 they were available only to corporate clients, said Nino Masurashvili, director of retail and SMEs at TBC.
The Energocredit loans only apply to Tbilisi residents, but the loans might extend to other regions in Georgia.
Consumer experience
Ana Mindorashvili, has taken out a loan in the hopes to save energy by buying a boiler and installing a central heating system. She is a project assistant at the Georgian Energy Efficiency Project, which aims to help industrial and residential clients reduce their energy usage and make greater use of renewable energy sources.
Mindorashvili said she used a regular gas heater before she switched to a central gas heating system to warm her three-bedroom apartment. She said the gas heater, installed in one of the rooms, did a poor job heating the other three.
“As a result my gas and electricity bills were about 150 lari per month for each (gas bill and electricity bill),” Mindorashvili said.
She said she has considered buying a central heating boiler for a long time but couldn’t afford it. She changed her mind when she decided to take out an Energocredit loan with TBC.
“The most attractive thing about the loan is that you get 15 percent of your money back through a subsidy by the company BP,” Mindorashvili said. “So, actually I got a 20 percent loan with a 15 percent subsidy, for a one year period.”
According to Mindorashvili, the process of taking out the loan was easy.
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