Heating plant. Illustrative photo.
Olomouc – The cost of modernizing domestic heating plants, whose operators will have to replace old coal-burning technologies with new heat sources and their distribution systems by 2030, will be around 180 billion crowns. The projects are financed with subsidies from the modernization fund, in which heating plants have 87.5 billion crowns at their disposal. The chairman of the Heating Association Mirek Topolánek said this at the two-day Days of Heating and Energy conference in Olomouc.
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By 2030, heating plants will switch from coal, which is now the main fuel, to mainly natural gas, solid biomass and biomethane. “We estimate the total investment by 2030 at 180 billion crowns,” said Topolánek, according to whom the successful transformation of the domestic heating industry is conditioned by an acceptable form of EU legislation and the provision of adequate funds in a program aimed at supporting the modernization of thermal energy supply systems.
According to Topolánek, due to multibillion-dollar investments of heating plants, it is necessary to negotiate with the EU about the amount of their reasonable profit, which takes into account modernization costs and market interest rates. Topolánek pointed out that in the modernization of the domestic heating industry, it will also be important to support heat produced from renewable sources and equipment for the combined production of electricity and heat.
Operators of heating plants have prepared hundreds of plans. Approximately half of the planned modernization of the heat source is based on the combustion of natural gas, a fifth envisages a transition to biomass and a tenth is focused on the energy use of waste. Modernization of heating plants using heat pumps, electric boilers, biogas, use of waste heat and various combinations of sources and fuels are also planned. Subsidies for heating plant projects of over 40 billion crowns have already been approved.
For example, the energy company ČEZ plans to invest 30 to 40 billion crowns by 2030 in the modernization and transformation of its heating plant locations to new fuels, according to earlier calculations. The modernization of the Přerov Heating Plant will cost more than a billion crowns. The new boilers will burn biomass and solid alternative fuels made from sorted non-recyclable waste. Coal technology will be shut down in the Přerov heating plant after the installation of new boilers.
