The city of Valjevo made a decision to enable citizens to connect to heating plant for free, which abolished the fees for switching to the district heating system.

The amendment envisages that for the next two years, citizens who wish to use the services of Public communal company ''Toplana'' will be exempted from the obligation to pay for connection to the district heating system. This should contribute to an increase in the number of Valjevo citizens who heat their homes with the help of this public company, but also to a reduction in the amount of dust and other pollutants in the air that come from the chimneys of these households.

The city of Valjevo recognized the citizen's initiative for enabling free connections to the hot water pipe, which was launched by the Local Response association in January of this year. The Local Response from Valjevo is a partner of the Belgrade Open School with whom, together with other local partners, we are working on the transformation of the domestic energy and climate sector. After consultations with tenants of residential buildings, managers of residential communities, independent experts and representatives of the Piblic communal company ''Toplana'', activists of the Local Response Association presented a proposal for enabling free connection to the district heating system during the public debate on the Draft Decision on the Budget of the city of Valjevo for 2024, which was concluded November 15, 2023.

At the conference of the Local Response association, and in connection with this decision of the City, Đorđe Petković, president of the Local Response, pointed out that this decision is the result of an almost year-long advocacy campaign conducted by the Local Response in Valjevo "and proof that citizens, when they become active and want to change and achieve something, they can do it considering that this is the result of the efforts of citizens and local associations". According to him, since January of this year, Local Response has conducted a series of activities in Valjevo and, among other things, organized consultations with associations, managers of housing communities, representatives of Public communal company ''Toplana'' and independent experts.

Aleksandar Perović, a tenant of the building in Vlade Danilovića Street, said that the tenants and the manager already had a meeting and discussion on the subject of connecting to heating plant, and that the tenants are in a positive mood to join the action initiated by the City of Valjevo, but he also points out some open questions : "We need complete information so that citizens can know the amount of investment in the installation that should be carried out through the apartments, but also whether payment for the service will be a flat rate every month during the year or will be based on consumption, as well as how much be costs?”

Perović emphasizes that at the moment it is unclear which city body or Public communal company ''Toplana'' to which citizens can turn for important information in order to be able to make a decision within their housing communities about possible connection to the district heating system.

At the conference, information was presented that about 12 percent of households in Valjevo are connected to the district heating system out of nearly 40 thousand households, and that in addition to the hot water network that passed through the city streets, there are 78 thousand square meters of residential and commercial space that could be heated with the help of PUK ''Toplana''.

This initiative was implemented within the project "Civil Society for Energy Transition: Get Involved!", which the Belgrade Open School implements in cooperation with the Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and Environmental Protection (RERI) and seven other local partners, with the aim of encouraging public participation. in the process of adopting the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan of the Republic of Serbia (INEKP). The project was financed by the British Embassy in Belgrade. in the period from December 1, 2022 to March 31, 2024.

Photo Credit: Local Response