Biomass in energy policy of Slovak Republic

The goals for higher biomass utilization in SR appear from Directive 2001/77/ES and they are embodied in several conceptual documents. One of this documents „The strategy for higher utilization of RES in SR“defines the medium term goal (by the year 2010) on production of 1240 GWh of electricity from RES. The strategy goal (by the year 2015) is the production 2300 GWh of electricity from RES, so 7 % of total electricity consumption. The target for production the electricity from biomass was stated on 410 GWh in 2010 and 650 GWh in 2015.

The biomass, as well as other RES utilization is not complexly solved, in the form of individual act in Slovak legislation. Since 2004 there have been accepted several acts for the energy field – Act No. 656/2001 on energetics, Act No. 657/2004 on heat energetics, Act No. 276/2001 on regulation in power industries and Government decree No. 124/2005. There laid hopes on this acts by the support of RES. But the praxis showed that the expected growth of RES utilization wasn’t attained. Only last year responsible ministries started to attend deeper to preparation of strategic and conceptual documents for support of RES utilization. For their working out there is often lack of relevant bases, there doesn’t exist systematic exploration and statistics, which could be reliable source for expert decision making.

In 2005 there was introduced by Decree of the Energy regulatory Office a feed-in-tariff system for electricity from renewable energy for the year 2006. The minimum prices differ for individual energy sources and year of installation. Tariffs for electricity produced from biomass are from 5,3 to 8 Euro cent/kW (5,3 cents for co-combustion, 8 cents for biomass from energy plantations; average exchange rate SKK/Euro – 37,5).

According to last information, from the Strategy for higher utilization of RES in Slovakia, financial support for public for installation of biomass boilers and solar panels should be introduced from 2007. The proposal for support is up to 25 % of investment costs for biomass boilers and 80 Euro for 1 m2 of solar panels up to 8 m2. As for price of solar panels, the support would cover only VAT costs in the present level of 19 %. But the financial sources planned for these proposals are were limited to this 100 mil. SKK yearly.