Safety and Comfort: Moscow Oblast Moves Heating Season Preparation Into the Digital Realm
In five districts of Moscow Oblast, a federal pilot project known as Tsifrovaya Kotel’naya has been completed. The initiative is designed to shift heating-sector documentation into electronic form, strengthening oversight of boiler operations while improving safety and operational reliability.
Five Cities Join the Pilot
The federal Tsifrovaya Kotel’naya experiment proved so effective that by 2026 all municipalities across Moscow Oblast are expected to prepare heating season readiness documents exclusively in digital format. The pilot phase, which relied on a dedicated digital platform, was carried out in the urban districts of Balashikha, Podolsk, Mytishchi, Odintsovo, and Mozhaysk.
Interagency commissions reviewed and approved documentation for residential and social infrastructure facilities. Digital readiness certificates and compliance records were issued for 7,552 apartment buildings and 982 social facilities. The same digital format was used for heat supply infrastructure: inspections covered 464 boiler houses and 378 heat networks. Commissions involving specialists from Rostekhnadzor signed digital readiness certificates for 81 resource-supplying companies.
All five cities received a digital inspection act and a digital readiness passport for the fall–winter heating period. For the first time, the full cycle of reviewing and approving infrastructure readiness documents was transferred into a digital environment. Each boiler house maintains extensive operational documentation, including technical equipment passports, diagrams and schematics, operating manuals, maintenance schedules, and logbooks recording completed work, parameter measurements, and emergency incidents. Previously, this information was kept on paper and accessible only to on-site personnel. Now, electronic operational logs are available to all participants in the process, including representatives of Rostekhnadzor and the Moscow Oblast government. This not only simplifies paperwork but also strengthens oversight, improving the reliability and safety of boiler house operations.
Ensuring Heat Supply and Tracking Risks
Tsifrovaya Kotel’naya goes beyond introducing modern technologies for uninterrupted heat supply operations. It establishes a system aimed at delivering stable, high-quality heating to every resident of the Moscow region. The model rests on three pillars – sector-wide digitalization, real-time operational control, and continuous feedback from all stakeholders involved.
Experts note that the federal pilot has the potential to elevate the heating supply system to a fundamentally new level, making everyday life more predictable, comfortable, and secure for residents.
Scaling the Practice Across the Region
The success of the federal experiment has laid the groundwork for expanding the approach across the entire region. Starting next year, all municipalities in Moscow Oblast will be required to develop and approve heating season readiness documents exclusively in digital form. This effort is part of a broader technological modernization of the heating sector. Its first stage focused on dispatching and monitoring heat supply facilities. Boiler houses were equipped with “smart” sensors that measure temperature and pressure and transmit this data to the regional control center.
The system has cut response times to technical incidents at boiler houses by half. Sensors have been installed at more than 2,200 facilities, with conditions displayed in real time on the Heat Supply Monitoring map. In 2025, an additional experiment was conducted to move documentation fully into electronic form.
Tsifrovaya Kotel’naya demonstrated its viability and became a key step toward building a modern, transparent, and manageable public utilities sector. Authorities plan to roll it out across the entire region. Over the longer term, the digital platform could be integrated with other smart city systems, forming a unified ecosystem for managing municipal utilities. The project’s success positions it as a potential model for adoption in other Russian regions.
