City of Belgrade clears for adoption of the Action Plan for District Energy System Development in Belgrade
After the Local Multi-stakeholder Coordination meeting that took place on November 27, 2019, where the draft Action Plan for District Energy System was presented, the officials of the City of Belgrade have finally endorsed the document for adoption by the Belgrade City Assembly in March 2020.
The Action Plan focuses on the strategic priorities of the Belgrade district heating company’s Development Strategy for the period up to 2025, but also provides an overview of the measures expected to be implemented by 2040. Some of the strategic objectives outlined in the Action Plan include usage of the waste heat from the nearby power plant “TENT-A Obrenovac” by Belgrade district heating plant in Novi Beograd providing alternative source of energy to the predominantly gas-powered system; reduction of energy losses in the network through a program of rehabilitation of the distribution system; as well as increasing energy efficiency on the side of the heat sources, network and substations including interconnection of heating areas. Implementation of these objectives would require an investment of over USD 265 M in total. Other priorities include increase of heat share from cogeneration and renewable energy sources, district cooling, introduction of consumption-based billing, and other.
The Action Plan has been developed as part of the work of the District Energy in Cities Initiative in Belgrade in line with the recently established Development Strategy of the Belgrade district heating company. The Strategy aims at enabling sustainable business operations in order to improve the efficiency of the company in terms of business organization and utilization of its production and distribution capacities while respecting environmental standards.
The work in Serbian capital began in 2016, when Belgrade was selected as one of the four pilot cities for implementation of the global project "Increasing Investments in District Energy Systems in Cities - SEforAll Energy Efficiency Accelerator" under the District Energy in Cities Initiative. UNEP with the City of Belgrade and the Belgrade district heating company have worked hand in hand on supporting activities to modernize and expand the existing district heating system.
Pilot activities of the Initiative in Belgrade were undertaken in two phases:
- The first phase involved the initial review of the district energy system and the development of a rapid assessment that identified two areas of focus of the Initiative's work, namely the issue of interconnection within the heating system and the integration of renewable energy sources.
- The second phase comprised an in-depth analysis of the heating system, including the development of a heat metering guidelines, a city-level system analysis report, short- and long-term district energy action plan and two pre-feasibility studies that analyze the interconnection and integration potential of renewable energy sources.
