EU Tracker – Local heating and cooling plans in Slovakia
Summary
What is the status of the transposition of Art 25.6(EDD) and its implementation ?
Slovakia is not well-prepared to transpose EED article 25.3. Regulatory change and establishing new support frameworks will be needed.
Slovakia lacks a robust policy framework that governs and supports the development of local heating and cooling plans. Slovakia lacks a proper legislative framework for such plans. However, municipalities above 2,500 inhabitants must submit a thermal energy assessment document every five years which contains elements of heat planning. This obligation may work as a partial legal base when transposing EED article 25.6. Key challenges for local energy planning in Slovakia include the lack of administrative and staff capacities, coordination, support framework and very limited stakeholder involvement. Substantial work hence remains for building proper regulatory and support framework in Slovakia that makes the development of local heating and cooling plans feasible.
Detailed assessment
The legal framework and the obligations
No proper legal framework and obligation to develop local heating and cooling plans
Overview of the legal frameworks per governance level
| National | Slovakia’s main climate and energy objectives are defined in its 2019 Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021 to 2030 (NECP), and its 2023 draft for an updated NECP. The NECP includes a modest renewable energy share target for the heating and cooling sector at 19 % by 2030, which has not been increased in the draft plan. The draft plan includes planned measures to expand and convert district heating systems to reach their renewable energy targets and improve energy efficiency. It highlights “the need to build capacity for quality energy planning at the strategic planning level for regions, towns and municipalities”, without defining specific measures. |
| Local | The Act on Heating regulates the production, distribution, and consumption of heating in Slovakia, requesting municipalities with a population larger than 2,500 inhabitants to every five years submit a thermal energy assessment document known as “Koncepcie” to the Ministry of Economy. This document should include information on demographics, energy consumption, energy infrastructures and sources and consider spatial planning and building regulations. It should include an analysis of the current provision and consumption of heat in the municipality with consideration to costs and environmental impact. It should also incorporate measures to phase out fossil fuels in certain sectors, including the heating sector. |
The support framework
A limited and fragmented support framework available to local authorities
Slovakia has no dedicated technical or financial support for municipalities to support the development of local heating and cooling plans. Available technical support is fragmented and mainly targeted towards specific projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency and renewable energy share of heat. Slovak municipalities are eligible to some national funding for developing their five-year thermal energy assessment plans and have benefited from various EU funding sources for energy-related projects. Small financial means have nevertheless been allocated for the purpose of strategic energy or heat planning. Slovak municipalities are greatly constrained by staffing shortages to develop such documents, making them reliant on external contractor, and by the lack of access to harmonised energy-related geodata.
Provided Support
| Technical and organisational | 1/5 | Overall, technical and organisational support in Slovakia is poor. Municipalities in Slovakia do not receive technical support for the development of their energy concepts and stakeholder engagement in the planning process is also often limited. There are only separate initiatives and studies such as the Atlas of Vulnerability and Risk Assessment of adverse effects of climate change on heating and cooling systems that the Bratislava Self-Governing Region (BSK) has developed, as well as a Catalogue of Adaptation Measures for towns and municipalities. The recently started EU-funded initiative for launching Regional Centres for Sustainable Energy (RCUE), aims to establish a coherent network of 22 regional centres across Slovakia. This will facilitate the implementation of national sustainability obligations at the regional level, with a focus on tasks such as drafting low-carbon strategies, gathering energy-related data, and assisting municipalities in decarbonization endeavours. This initiative, involving approximately 140 participants spanning 22 regions, may play an important role to facilitate the implementation of the EED proposition. |
| Financial | 2/5 | The national government provides some funding to hire external expertise in the development of the local five-year thermal energy assessment plans, and the last energy concept submissions in 2018-2019 were funded up to 95% by the national government. The national Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA) manages some grant schemes for heating and cooling projects, such as the Green Households program, dedicated to enhancing energy efficiency and adopting renewable energy sources in heating and cooling projects, with a total investment of €140 million and the installation of 53,000 units since its inception in 2015. The funding framework for local energy projects related to building renovations, cooling, renewable energy sources and district heating, is overall very limited, fragmented, and mainly targeted towards just transition regions. Local authorities are heavily reliant on EU funding, such as the ‘Regional Centers for Sustainable Energy (RCUE)’ program, the Recovery and Resilience Plan, and the Modernization Fund (managed by the Ministry of Environment). |
| Staff & skills | 1/5 | Slovak municipalities have very limited staff resources available for strategic energy planning. There are no training programs or dedicated staff assigned to support the in-house development of energy planning documents. Local authorities tend to hire consultants for energy planning related projects or activities, which either is funded by the municipal budget or as in the case of their five-year thermal energy assessment plans funded by the national government. |
| Access to data | 2/5 | Overall, the access to data for local authorities in Slovakia is poor. There are no specific local resources or tools readily available for data gathering and analysis for preparing heating and cooling plans. The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic provides a platform for local authorities with some heating related spatial data, including data on heated surface area and heating system. It does however not include sufficiently granular data buildings regarding age and energy performance, which is not yet harmonised and readily available. Data on the supply of electricity, gas and DH may be provided to local authorities upon request. Data on the technical and economic potential is currently accessible only for Geothermal, Photovoltaic (PV), and Waste heat from incinerators. Authorities have access to the spatial positioning of electricity and district heating grid infrastructure but not on their transmission capacities. |
