Future needs in the field of Rational Use of Energy in Serbia
Bojan Kovačić, MSc. Professional Advisor, SUNP, Novi Pazar
The basic premise in selecting the objectives of the Serbian energy policy and determining its priorities and appropriate instruments is based on the political commitment of the country to the economical adjustment of the whole energy system development with the economic development of the country and its inclusion in the process of European integrations. However, it is necessary to harmonize in a short period of time not only the energy system development with the economic development, but also the development of energy production sectors with the energy consumption sectors.
Development and implementation of the Serbian energy policy is under jurisdiction of the Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection. The Energy lawdefines energy policy objectives and the instruments for its implementation. The Energy Sector Development Strategy of the Republic of Serbia until 2015 (Strategy) was adopted inMay 2005. The Strategy attempts to address current and future problems in the energy sector identifying the priority programs, which will contribute to energy sectordevelopment, economical development and process of European integrations. Within the scope of Strategy, energy efficiency was recognized as the second, directed priority of economical use of quality energy products and increase in the energy efficiency in the production, distribution and utilization of energyby end consumers of energy-related services. Also, the third, special priority of the Strategy is related to the use of new Renewable Energy Sources (RSE) and new, more energy efficient and environmentally acceptable energy technologies and installations/equipment for energy utilization.
Energy efficiency has been also recognized as a priority in both Sustainable Development Strategy of the Republic of Serbia and National Economy Development Strategy from 2006 to 2012.Implementation Program for the Energy Sector Development Strategy is to be adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia for a period of six years and to be updated in accordance with the actual needs for energy and energy sources every other year at minimum. Within the Serbian Energy Strategy Implementation programme for the period 2007-2012 a separate chapters (modules) are dedicated to energy efficiency in the energy consumption sectors and to the establishment of the Energy Efficiency Fund (EE Fund). The module on energy efficiency describes overall situation in the energy consumption sectors, estimates energy potentials per sector (industry, traffic, buildings), identifies barriers for increase of energy efficiency and proposes a set of measures necessary to overcome those barriers. However, the description of the situation in those sectors is mainly based on the estimated data, while the energy saving potential is assessed in the bottom up approach (potential of some sector specific measures is estimated at the national level).
Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protectionis currently drafting the Law on Rational Use of Energy. The main objective of this Law is to provide and support responsible, rational and sustainable usage of energy, thus contributing to the better security of energy supply, increase of the employment rate, competitiveness and environmental protection. Those objectives could be fulfilled through the establishment of the market for the energy efficiency services, change the habits and behaviors related to the usage of energy, realization of the programs and projects aimed to increase energy efficiency and application of the long term measures for the energy efficiency increasing and introduce energy management. Law on Planning and Construction, which is in jurisdiction of the Ministry of Construction and Urbanism, sets the legal basis for introduction of the energy efficiency criteria and energy certificates for the new and reconstructed buildings that should be met as a condition for obtaining of the construction permits. It came into the force on 31st September 2012 by the Ministries Rules.
Introduction and promotion of the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) production received significant attention in the number of legal acts that have been prepared and adopted. Taking into account that CHP represents important potential for energy savings and rational use of energy, electric power producers that simultaneously produce electrical and thermal energy, have been declared as privileged electric power producers, provided that they have met the criteria related to energy efficiency. The requirements for obtaining the status of privileged electric power producer have been defined in the Decree on the requirements for obtaining the status of the privileged electric power producer and the criteria for assessing fulfillment of these requirements, which had been passed by the Government of the Republic of Serbia. Also, in order to additionally support the activities on electricity generation using RES and CHP, by prescribing the encouraging measures for electricity generation using RES and CHP, Government of the Republic of Serbia passed the Decree on incentive measures for electricity generation using RES and for CHP generation. Those encouraging measures encompass the feed-in tariffs specified in the Decree according to the type of power plant producing electricity, including fossil fuel CHP plants, with the capacity up to the 10 MW.
Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection is acting in the field of energy efficiency through introduction or initiation of number of projects and programs, aimed to provide the conditions and incentives for the rational use of energy, as well as awareness raising campaigns in the respective field.Besides the previously examined measure, the increasing of the public awareness and education is crucial. Among other programs, the then Serbian Energy Efficiency Agency started the program in cooperation with Ministry of education, which considers the introduction of the elective class related to the RES including also part related to the increasing the energy efficiency in the electrotechnical secondary schools in Serbia (73 schools). The underlying idea is that changes of the public opinion and increasing consciousness about the importance of energy efficiency could be effectively reached through formal education, especially in the early ages.
Household sector - public and commercial activities, excluding agriculture have been in permanent growth in the observed period, particularly construction of all types of buildings: residential, commercial and combined - multipurpose buildings. Private, domestic and foreign investment in Serbian urban centers resulted in an attractive development, particularly combined multipurpose type of buildings – commercial with the office, shopping and luxurious residential areas, with enormous installed HVAC power. This tendency is evident in the most of recently constructed buildings, and the average consumption of heating energy in new buildings is under 100 kWh/m2.
On the other side, the average annual heating energy consumption in the most of the existing buildings in urban areas in Serbia is significantly higher, amounting even 2 to 3 times more than in new buildings. Households in buildings built in seventies and eighties, during the period of the most intensive housing stock growth, are characterized with the excessive final energy demand and heating energy consumption growth. Built poor, and in addition due to their aging, their envelopes thermal performances are becoming permanently worse. Constructed without or with not adequate thermal insulation, these buildings present today the most serious problem of energy wastage in Serbia. Additional characteristics of these buildings are the oversized secondary heating installations and boilers, or heating substations if connected to the district heating systems. According to the Implementation Programme of Energy Strategy estimates are that average Serbian specific final energy consumption for heating and hot water preparation in buildings is about 220 KWh/ m2, which is highly above EU average.
Many of households are also inefficiently using electricity for heating and air-conditioning. As a result of global warming, in recent years, people are installing air-conditioning split units even on the facades of social housing (there are social housing buildings with more than 80% of apartment with air-conditioning units). To the households energy wastage is contributed also inefficient electrical sanitary water preparation and inefficient appliances. The huge percentage of existing buildings need urgent intervention and their energy performance cost-effective improvement.
Energy demand and consumption in Individual houses in rural areas are characterized by similar features dependent mainly on the building’s age. Percentage of houses in rural areas within the district heating systems and connected to the gas pipelines is smaller than in urban areas. Renewable energy sources, mostly biomass are extensively used, unfortunately more forest wood than forest residues and agricultural wastes, and in addition many households are for fueling using inefficient oven/stoves. Increased awareness related to the energy savings would be beneficial in addition to the founding reliable financial schemes for improvement of households and buildings energy efficiency.
Electricity consumption by sectors in % in 2008 in Serbia is presented by the graph on the Figure 4. It shows that households with 30% and a major percentage of 52% (others) belonging to public and commercial buildings present together between 50 and 60 % of total electricity consumption inSerbia. The Building sector is the most energy-demanding sector in Serbia representing approx. 44% of the total final energy consumption in 2008. Households require 56% of the total electricity consumption in Serbia. 65% of the said consumption is used for space heating in the residential sector (source SEEA). There is a large potential for energy saving and a wide scope of viable energy efficiency measures in the building stock.
Figure 1. Net electricity consumption by sectors in % (year 2008) in Serbia
The Serbian industry sector accounts for approximately 32 % of total final energy consumption. There was a drastic fall of energy consumption in this sector in the 90s caused by the transition process, privatisation and structural changes. Specific Energy Consumption (SEC) and Energy Intensity (EI) in Serbian industry are very high. Comparing to the countries in Western Europe, EI in Serbian industry in 1990, was four time higher. In Serbia, in 2002 EI has been increased 25 % more comparing to 1990. In industrial sector in 90s, SEC has been increased and share of energy consumption in industry in final energy consumption decreased due to usage of low capacity of industrial plants, old equipment and inadequate equipment maintenance. During past few years, the state of energy sources of most active industrial companies (medium and large size companies) hasn’t been changed. However, in the last few years there has been slightly fluctuating growth of energy consumption in industry sector. The largest consumer of energy in industry is the food industries and chemicals, followed by iron and steel, non-metallic minerals, pulp and paper, and the non-ferrous metals industry. The structure of energy consumption in 2008 is as follows: solid fossil fuels 12.41 %, liquid fuels 18.28 %, gaseous fuels 36.63 %, biomass (wood) 0.79 %, heat 10.44 % and electricity 21.46 %.
Therefore, one of the most important activities in the following years should be undertaking the energy audits, with the objective of decreasing the use of energy, and introduction of energy management in industrial facilities. Also, one of the main tasks should be establishment of detailed database of energy consumption in industry per industrial branches and defining the main energy indicators for the purpose of benchmarking. In the past years there were great differences between the loading capacities of different industry branches, economical conditions and business performance, and their share in final energy consumption should be calculated based on the energy auditing reports, which should be done using general and harmonized methodology.
Transport sector in Serbia has some diversity in comparison to most neighboring and European countries:
High average age of vehicle fleet;
Dynamic modernization of fleet for last few years (increasing number of vehicles followed with decrease in the average age of fleet);
Relatively large proportion of road transport in total transport sector consumption;
Obsolescence i.e. underdevelopment of railway sector resulting in low share of railway transport of goods and passengers in the total percentage;
Insufficient number of the historical data necessary for evaluation / planning in sector.
After the events in 1990’s, energy consumption has been quickly stabilised. Already in 2001 demand of gasoline and diesel fuel has reached the level of 85% of 1990 consumption.Modest growth of oil consumption (1.5%) has been achieved during the 2007 and 2008. Motor fuel consumption as a dominant segment of the oil products (64%) in the same period have an average growth of 5.7%. The biggest annual growth had LPG with 13.5 %. Diesel fuel had an average annual growth of around 9%, while gasoline recorded fall by an average annualrate of -4%.
Republic of Serbia is now in the fourth position in Southeastern Europe, behind Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia regarding the consumption of oil. To demonstrate the potential motor fuel consumption increase we can make comparison of Serbia with average EU or individual EU member states: Slovenia with almost four times smaller population in the transport sector consumes almost the same amount of energy as Serbia. We can also emphasize the fact that Bulgaria and Serbia have approximately the same population, and Bulgaria spends in transport sector almost 50% energy more then Serbia. In comparison with Croatia (the population of Croatia is about 55% of Serbian population) Serbia spends in the transport sector 10-15 % less energy.For the development of motor fuel consumption during 1990 – 2008 is almost exclusively responsible private sector. The tendency of transport sector to become dominant carier of total energy demand has allready been spotted in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the first decade of their economic transition. “The Regional Balkans Infrastructure Study” (REBIS) projected rates of growth of both transport of goods and passengers in the Balkan region.
The key problem in terms of energy efficiency (and in terms of environment and safety) is the age of the fleet. At the end of 2005 the average age of the entire road traffic fleet was 15.3 years, of which 20% of vehicles (over 400 000 units) were over 20 years old. At the end of 2004 the age of the fleet in railway traffic was 31.1 years while in the water traffic average age was 37 years. The measures given in this action plan are in line with expected further dominance of road transport in Serbia as well as planned moderate recovery of railway traffic. The transport sector accounts for approximately 28% of the total final energy consumption in Serbia. The largest number of suggested energy saving measures aims at road transport (because of its dominant share (89%) plus expected increase of energy consumption).
The expected number of vehicles increase (level of motorization was 202 cars per 1000 inhabitants in 2007 (Source: The program of implementation of the Serbian’s Strategy of energy development) which is low compared to the European average), expected increase of the travel distance, expected decrease of the car occupancy and increasing number of vehicles with air conditioning will result in growth of total sector consumption.Estimation is that from 2011 Republic of Serbia will start applying the directives and recommendations of the European Commission for substitution of fossil fuels with alternative fuels.Data collecting will also provide mora acurate calculation of EE indicators. Future EE indicators for the transport sector should include: intensity (total and by type of transport), energy efficiency index, unit consumption (by type and fuel), specific, CO2 emissions by type of transport (cars – average of the fleet and of new cars - trucks, buses, air, rail, and water transport) etc.
The main objective of the Law on rational use of energy is to provide and support responsible, rational and sustainable usage of energy through the establishment of the market for the energy efficiency services, change of habits and behaviors related to the usage of energy, realization of the programs and projects aimed to increase energy efficiency and application of the long term measures for the energy efficiency increasing and introduce energy management.
Energy Efficiency Fund (EE Fund) will be established in order to support and co-finance priority activities/projects/programmes aimingto increase the energy efficiency in both production and consumption sectors, as well as increase of RES usage.The beneficiaries could use the EE Fund to obtain the loans, different kinds of guaranties, subsidies, donations and technical assistants via public tendering procedures.
The energy efficiency measure that should address big energy consumers in industry and services sector as well as in the public sector is related to the introduction of energy management. Energy management will be obligatory for all consumers with annual consumption larger than prescribed in the Law on rational use of energy (currently under the preparation), as well as for the public sector. This measure encompasses monitoring, control and reporting on the energy consumption and constant implementation of energy efficiency and conservation measures.
The prognosis of FEC (Final Energy Consumption) is based on FEC dependence on GDP. For the purpose of the calculation in that chapter the following prediciotns have been utilized: Official projections of the GDP growth rate are only available in the revised Memorandum of Budget of Republic of Serbia for the period 2010-2012, while for the period 2013-2016 projections will be assumed as defined in the Energy Sector Development Strategy Actually observed increase of FEC has to go slower due to the implementation of EEI measures. In short-term and middle-term conditions this dependence could be accepted as constant: The rate of FEC increase will be slower that the rate of GDP growth.
Public sector has to implement cost-effective measures which generate the largest energy savings in the shortest span of time.
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