Teploenergo has completed an investment programme to upgrade its heating infrastructure in the city of Taganrog. Total investment in the project was RUR354m: RUR133m was contributed by the European Bank for Regional Development (EBRD) to the company's registered capital in 2007, and RUR221m was provided in 2008 as a ten-year EBRD loan.

This project was the EBRD's first experience of financing the modernisation of a private heating company in Russia.

The investment, equivalent to EUR10m, is the largest in Teploenergo to date. The finance was used to construct ten new boiler rooms, install gas-powered combined heat and power units (cogeneration units), upgrade three central heat substations and construct seven kilometres of new heating pipelines in Taganrog.

The implementation of this programme enabled the company to reduce the rate of depreciation of its fixed assets from 55% to 33%.
Equipment from the leading international manufacturers, Buderus, Weishaupt, Wilo and Grundfos, has been installed in the new boiler rooms.

The investment programme has resulted in a 4% reduction in gas consumption, a 10.5% reduction in electricity consumption, a 40.1% reduction in the number of personnel required to operate the plant, and annual CO2 emissions have fallen by 6,800 tonnes.
Many aspects of Teploenergo’s investment programme are significant:

• ―  As part of the project, 20 boiler rooms that under federal law and other regulations were no longer fit for operation were closed down.
• ―  At a time when there is a growing discrepancy between gas and heating tariffs (+30.08% and +13.06% in 2010, respectively), the investment programme will enable this socially significant enterprise to remain economically viable.
• ―  Thanks to the support of the Governor of Rostov region, Vladimir Chub, and the Mayor of Taganrog, Nickolai Fedyanin, Teploenergo has been able to start collecting heating bill payments directly from consumers. This has reduced by 30% the chronic indebtedness that had resulted from the use of intermediaries.
• ―  The investments have social and environmental benefits that in today’s world are more important than ever: better quality services, fewer hazardous facilities, and lower levels of atmospheric pollution in Taganrog, a city famous as the birthplace of the master of world literature, Anton Chekhov. (The 150th anniversary of the writer’s birth will be celebrated in January 2010.)

The company was founded in 1977. In 1997 it became an open joint-stock company, and today it is owned by: the EBRD (25%), OAO Center-Invest Bank (47%), OOO Mezhregionteploenergo (13%), Dr. Vysokov and Mrs Vysokova (11%), and minority shareholders (4%). Teploenergo supplies 57% of the heat and 75% of the hot water in the city of Taganrog. In 2009, the company's turnover was RUR397m.