EU Tracker – Local heating and cooling planning in Slovenia
Summary
What is the status of the transposition of Art 25.6(EDD) and its implementation ?
Slovenia is currently not ready for EED article 25.6, and will need both regulatory adjustment and substantial improvement of its support framework.
Slovenian mmunicipalities are obliged to develop Local energy concepts (LEK). These do however not sufficiently cover heating and cooling mapping or planning and are in most cases unrelated to other municipal planning documents. Some regulatory adjustment will therefore be needed. Work at the national level is ongoing to improve the technical guidance to municipalities to develop their energy plans, which hitherto has been limited. Efforts by Slovenian municipalities to develop local heating and cooling plans are also restricted by a lack of dedicated funding, shortage of staff and expertise, and the access to available and harmonized energy-related geodata.
Detailed assessment
The legal framework and the obligations
Heat planning is partially addressed by local energy plans, mandatory for all municipalities
Overview of the legal frameworks per governance level
| National | Slovenia’s main energy policy is defined in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan for Slovenia (NECP), submitted in 2020. A draft for an updated NECP was submitted in 2023, with a 70 % emission reduction target for buildings to 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and a 41 % Renewable energy target for the heating and cooling sector. In December 2023 a 2050 Heating and Cooling Strategy (HCS) for Slovenia, including Action Plan up to 2030, was adopted. The Action Plan foresees measures in five thematic areas, namely promoting energy efficiency and the use of RES, promoting the development of district heating and cooling systems, developing financial instruments for the deployment of RES, energy recovery from waste for heating, ensuring access to data for strategic planning. The measures are also included in the updated National Energy and Climate Plan (update in 2024). All Slovenian municipalities are since 2009 required to develop a local energy concept (LEK) plan, according to Article 29 of the Energy Act (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, no. 17/14 and 81/15). At the moment, the upgrading of the LEK methodology and the improvement of implementation are in the final stages of preparation. The proposal to upgrade the LEK methodology will fully supports the concept of preparing heating and cooling plans for municipalities as outlined in the proposal for amendments to the Energy Efficiency Directive. |
| Local | The local energy concept (LEK) plan should include an assessment of currently supply of heat and electricity, and an action plan with measures for a 10-year period to include the share of renewable energy sources and improve energy efficiency. The Ministry of Energy prescribes the preparation methodology, which includes public participation, and the mandatory content of the plan. Municipalities must revise their plan every five years and align it with targets and objectives set in the National Energy and Climate Plan and other national documents. The quality and content of the LEK plans are overseen by the Ministry of Energy, to which municipalities are responsible for reporting on the implementation progress on an annual basis. There are however no legal consequences if municipalities fail to reach the goals set in the LEKs. The LEKs lack spatial and zoning dimensions regarding heating and cooling should of these reasons not be considered as proper heating and cooling mapping and plans. LEKs are often poorly aligned with other municipal plans and documents and show low compliancy rates. |
Content of the local energy concept (LEK) plan according to law
The main elements of the LEK according to article 29 of the Energy Act include the following elements:
- analyses of the supply of energy (including zoning of networks and facilities and different energy sources consumption of energy across the entire territory
- consumption of energy across the entire territory
- An analysis of energy-related emissions
- An identification of weak points in regard to the security of supply and emission sources
- An assessment of projected energy supply sources
- Mapping of distribution networks and consumption
- An analysis of the possibility of efficient use of energy and the potential of renewable energy sources
- An action plan preceded by an analysis of possible measures to achieve energy planning goals
- Instructions for its implementation
In the context of revision of the methodology (ongoing), the importance of establishing a supportive environment that will allow for an efficient, transparent and harmonized implementation of the methodology and monitoring of impacts and results is recognized (e.g. improvement of central data collection at country level, establishment, management and maintenance of an information portal, strengthening of institutional and professional capacities of the LS).
The support framework
A limited support framework with restricted access to data despite some improvements underway
A limited support framework hampers the quality and compliancy rate of the local energy concept plans in Slovenia, and no Slovene municipality has so far developed a comprehensive heating or cooling plan. The technical and organisational support provided to local authorities is currently insufficient to provide the necessary guidance, however with improvements underway. No dedicated financial framework to support the development of local heating and cooling plans has been established, while local administrations are greatly constrained by the lack of staffing to carry out tasks related to energy planning. Access to harmonized energy-related geodata is moreover limited. While some improvements regarding technical support is underway, substantial efforts remain to provide the technical, organisational and financial support, the human resources and the access to workable energy-related geodata needed to carry out local heating and cooling planning.
Provided Support
| Technical and organisational | 2/5 | The ministry in charge of environment, climate and energy has provided a methodology to develop the LEK, which is currently not deemed precise enough. The ministry of infrastructure appointed an expert advisory body (cross actors’ community) to upgrade the methodology in the frame of the LIFE IP Care4Climate project in 2022, and a new methodology is being developed and tested with municipalities and different stakeholders. This will detail the heating and cooling mapping and planning aspects. In addition, there is a lack of stakeholders’ engagement during the preparation of the LEKs. The plans of energy utilities are moreover often misaligned with the LEK, which may have less incentives to reduce their sale (and supply) of energy to consumers, while municipalities have limited means to force the utilities to cooperate. The IMEAS project in the Slovene regions of Savinjska, Šaleška and Koroška was deployed with the purpose to overcome such barriers and improve the horizontal and vertical alignments between stakeholders and between LEKs, other planning documents and national and European emission reduction targets. |
| Financial | 2/5 | Slovenia has no dedicated financial framework in place to support the preparation of LEKs or other strategic energy planning related activities. Some national calls for projects may cover the implementation phase of these plans depending on the focus of the national program changing regularly. Municipalities might also rely on EU funds and calls for projects for the planning and implementation phases. |
| Staff & skills | 1/5 | The lack of staff and skills in Slovenian municipalities is a critical constraint for energy planning. Around 10 municipalities have at least one staff dedicated to climate and energy topics in their administration, but most municipalities do not have dedicated staff. Municipalities are therefore highly dependent on the expertise of their regional energy agency or consultancies for energy planning related activities. |
| Access to data | 1/5 | Municipalities have only partial access to the necessary data to draft their LEK, which is insufficient for the purpose of heating and cooling planning. Energy infrastructure related data is available and often provided in a harmonized format, while energy supply data is sometimes not provided from utilities. Buildings data is provided for some buildings through energy certificates but not at a scale sufficient for energy planning purposes. Energy demand data is in most cases not readily available. Data on renewable energy potential has in most cases not yet been analysed and made available to local authorities through databases. Local authorities currently lack tools and databases to readily access harmonized energy-related geodata. The lack of available and harmonized data consequently puts additional constrains to local authorities’ abilities to develop municipal energy planning documents. |
