Sverdlovsk Region Government, Yekaterinburg Municipal Council, and RUDEA (the Russian-German energy agency) signed a cooperation agreement.

The agreement provides for the three parties’ long-term and mutually beneficent cooperation in the field of energy-saving and energy efficiency in Sverdlovsk Region and Yekaterinburg. The agreement also covers a number of investment projects.

The paper was signed by the region’s Communal Housing Services Minister Yuri Shevelev, Deputy Mayor of Yekaterinburg for Communal Housing Services and Housing Policy Konstantin Krynin, and RUDEA’s General Director Thomas Hendel.

RUDEA’s top executive reports the agreement will result in specific projects as soon as in four weeks’ time.

Yekaterinburg or, more specifically, Yekaterinburg’s Khimmash district will be used as a pilot territory for RUDEA’s projects; later on, these projects will also be implemented throughout Sverdlovsk Region’s towns. The company intends to train workers, upgrade pumping stations, build independent heating facilities for remote users, restore heating supply networks, enhance the energy efficiency of Uralkhimmash plant, restore boiling plants, provide heating to dwellings, make the public sector more energy-efficient, and promote energy-saving.

The three parties plan to resume their work on the project specification after the early May break.

Thomas Hendel believes it is possible to start implementing the projects in Khimmash by the time the meeting of Russian and German country leaders takes place in Yekaterinburg on July 13-15, 2010.