Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

Slovenian firm HTZ Velenje, subsidiary of lignite producer Premogovnik Velenje, is the contractor in a challenging solar power project. The country’s last coal mine is exploring options for methane extraction, a gravity power plant, underground energy storage and farming.

Five EU countries including the UK, Germany, Greece, Poland, and Slovenia are looking to introduce new fossil fuel subsidies by 2030, an analysis of the 28 Member States’ draft energy and climate plans (NECPs) has revealed.

In a new report, “Fossil fuel subsidies in draft EU National Energy and Climate Plans: Shortcomings and final call for action,” experts from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Friends of the Earth (FoE) Netherlands, and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe have analyzed the EU Member States’ draft NECPs, which require governments to report on their fossil fuel subsidies and plans to phase them out, the CAN has said in a press release.

The Slovenian government has adopted a revision of the 2018 budget of Eko Sklad, the public environmental fund managed by the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, increasing subsidies planned for 2018 as part of efforts to fight climate change, according to a press release from the government.

Slovenian Energy Agency has published a public call for the selection of projects eligible to receive incentives for electricity production from renewable energy sources and high-efficiency co-generation (CHP) facilities.

Heads of municipalities in Slovenia’s coal regions – Savinjsko-Šaleška, and Zasavje decided to establish a council of mayors to monitor the phaseout of coal and secure just transition. In the meantime, the government has published action plans for phasing out coal in the two regions. The documents will help Slovenia tap on the Just Transition Fund.

Slovenian blockchain-powered energy trading platform SunContract has recently entered into a strategic partnership with Italian energy company Tecnoapp.

Under a cooperation agreement signed by SunContract and Tecnoapp, the parties are to work on the market expansion of SunContract Energy Marketplace and decentralization of the energy market in Italy.

SunContract is an energy trading platform that directly connects energy producers and consumers into an energy pool based on smart contracts, according to the platform’s website. Through the platform, Slovenian households are currently witnessing electricity cost reductions of up to 40% while also choosing environmentally friendly energy sources, SunContract says.

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Eleven European countries, including Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria, have no concrete plans for introducing tenders for renewable energy sources (RES) in the short term, while Croatia has indicated it will start with tendering procedures for biomass this year, according to the Council of the European Energy Regulators’ (CEER) Tendering procedures for RES in Europe: State of play and first lessons learnt report.

The Slovenian Energy Agency has selected 93 projects with a capacity of 98 MW to receive incentives for the production of power from renewables and CHP.