February 25 (SeeNews) - Moldova’s second-largest city of Balti will buy ten new trolleybuses using a 2.5 million euro ($2.7 million) loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and a 1.2 million euro grant from the Eastern Europe Energy Efficiency and Environment Partnership (E5P) fund.
The new trolleybuses will operate on electricity and use batteries, which will allow vehicles to circulate in remote areas without using wires, the EBRD said in a press release on Monday.
The project will also contribute to the expansion of existing routes, serve densely populated areas and improve the overall efficiency of the service. In addition, the loan will finance the rehabilitation of the old energy supply infrastructure and the purchase of maintenance equipment.
The project is part of the EBRD’s Green Cities, which is helping Balti to develop an Action Plan to identify, prioritise and address environmental challenges. The initiative aims at creating a better and more sustainable future for cities and their inhabitants by investing in infrastructure and adopting the best policies for long-term environmental gains.
In Moldova, the E5P is funded by the EU, Sweden, Moldova, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Lithuania. The EU is Moldova’s largest donor and has to date provided over 1 billion euro in grant funding.
The EBRD is also a leading institutional investor in Moldova. To date, the Bank has invested nearly 1.3 billion euro in the country in over 130 projects, targeting the banking sector, sustainable infrastructure, trade and agricultural affairs.
($ = 0.9244 euro)