Radiators in Priboj citizens\u2019 homes should as of the next heating season be heated by the biomass that will be used by a new heating plant. That would make Priboj one of the first cities in Serbia to use fuel that is cheaper and less harmful than fuel oil for remote heating. Carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 87%, while sulfur dioxide emissions will be cut by a whopping 98%.<\/p>
The city expects that in this way it will also slash its fuel expenses in half, while four other municipalities in Serbia share a similar fate. All this is in line with the official Energy Development Strategy, which envisages 11.2% of the total energy for heating being generated precisely by biomass heating plants by 2020.<\/p>
However, it does not seem like there will be a significant increase in the use of biomass relative to inefficient remote heating which, according to earlier research<\/a>, is used by about a third of the Serbian population, because existing projects will have a small range, the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) has discovered. There is no plan for switching to biomass as the ideal renewable energy source, but rather everything has been left to the local self-governments to deal with, which is not a good solution according to CINS\u2019 interlocutors. The 2019 Energy Balance shows that radiator heat obtained from biomass accounted for less than 1%. This fuel can be used to generate heat and electricity, but in Serbia its importance is the greatest in solving the problem of costly remote heating.<\/p> \u201cBiomass heating is cheaper and healthier than fuel oil heating, by about 20% in the part pertaining to the price of the fuel,\u201d Ministry of Mining and Energy <\/em>officials say.<\/p> <\/p>