Priboj in Serbia covers 80% of residential building refurbishment

Saša Vasilić, deputy mayor of the Municipality of Priboj, said the local authorities provided RSD 10 million (EUR 85,000) for energy efficiency measures in residential structures. Five buildings are being renewed in the old part of the town of the same name, where subsidies account for 80%, he noted.

The official from southwestern Serbia stressed yesterday that such programmes, which include public institutions, decrease energy consumption in heating and cooling as well as the carbon footprint.

Earlier, he expressed appreciation to the programme Development of a Sustainable Bioenergy Market in Serbia (GIZ DKTI) for organizing the visit of the workgroup from the area for biomass and energy efficiency to Croatia. Vasilić attended the signing of the memorandums of understanding between Regional Development Agency Zlatibor from Serbia on the one side with Regional Energy Agency North (Sjever) from Koprivnica and North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency or Regea. He said there is an initiative to establish such an institution in southwestern Serbia.

For the renewal of two schools, EUR4.6 million was spent

The reconstruction of the mechanical engineering and electrical engineering secondary school in Priboj was finished this month. Together with the works on elementary school ‘Desanka Maksimović’, which was reopened at the start of the school year, it cost RSD 541.5 million or EUR 4.6 million. The municipality’s deputy head thanked the Government of Serbia and the Public Investment Management Office.

In the past four years, heating boilers with total capacity of 3 MW were replaced

Before that, the boiler running on coal in elementary school ‘Nikola Tesla’ in Pribojska Banja was replaced by a 250-kW system which burns pellets. Vasilić said that since 2016 the municipality introduced heating on wood biomass with total capacity of 3 MW in public buildings instead of old systems, which used fossil fuel. Carbon dioxide emissions were cut by 1,500 tonnes this year, in his words.

BGEN wrote in October about the opening of a 1.8-MW district heating plant on biomass. It was built with the help of the country’s government and GIZ and it covers four schools and a pediatric clinic. The project was worth RSD 126 million (EUR 1.1 million).

The town is getting a new district heating station and network

Municipality chief Lazar Rvović signed in late September a contract with the Ministry of Mining and Energy and German state-owned development bank KfW on the construction of a combined district heating plant in the town. The facility is planned to use biomass and heating oil and have a capacity of 8 MW and 15 MW, respectively. The agreement includes the complete reconstruction of the pipes and substations in Priboj.

The investment is EUR 6 million and local officials said they expect savings of EUR 500,000 per annum. German and Swiss governments provided 16.5% of the expenses and KfW approved a loan for the remainder with a 1.1% interest rate and a two-year grace period.