Ljubljana/Velenje, 28 May (STA) - The municipality of Velenje received EUR 20 million from the Just Transition Fund for the first phase of transformation of the Šalek Valley district heating system, which is currently provided by the Šoštanj coal-fired power plant.
The funds have been approved by the Cohesion and Regional Development Ministry as part of the project worth a total of EUR 30.3 million.
In the first phase, the municipality will optimise existing infrastructure to reduce losses, the ministry said on Wednesday.
The project also includes gradual energy-efficient decentralisation of heat production in accordance with the principles of efficient energy use, and support for digitisation of the supply and powering of the distribution system.
Critical sections of the heating network, which are almost eight kilometres long, will be renovated, nine district heating substations with the associated 2.4-kilometre network will be modernised, and 65 new internal substations will be constructed.
The ministry noted that the transformation of the district heating system, which also covers the nearby Šoštanj, is one of the main projects of the just transition of one of Slovenia's two coal regions.
The municipality is in for an even more challenging task in the next phase, as part of which the local utility company will have to pick a new supplier of heating by the beginning of 2026.
This is in line with the law on transitional financing of accelerated coal phase-out, which has turned the current supplier, the loss-making Šoštanj power plant, from a producer of electricity primarily into a producer of heat.
