State Will Provide €55 mn for Investments in Heating Modernisation of Towns (3)

Bratislava, 31 July (TASR) - The state will provide €55 million from the modernisation fund for investments in the modernisation of heating management in some towns, especially in heat distribution systems, Vice-premier and Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a Slovak National Party/SNS nominee) stated at a briefing on Thursday, with Environmental Fund director general Marek Giba in attendance. According to Taraba, Slovakia has a huge investment debt in the heating sector, which mainly concerns heating distribution systems. "These are facilities that haven't been reconstructed for forty, fifty, sixty years, and through which the heat loss is sometimes greater than 50 percent. Of course, all this is mirrored, in the functioning of municipal budgets or in the costs of Slovak households," said the minister. Taraba added that they have successfully completed a scheme under the Modernisation Fund, which will distribute €55 million at this stage. According to him, the money will be sent to towns and cities, including Nove Mesto nad Vahom, Prievidza, Novaky (all Trencin region), Levice, Surany (both Nitra region), Martin, Namestovo, Zilina, Kysucke Nove Mesto (all Zilina region), Sabinov (Presov region), Kosice, Bratislava-Vrakuna, Leopoldov (Trnava region), Bratislava Petrzalka, and Rimavska Sobota (Banska Bystrica region). "All these projects together, for example in the case of Vrakuna it is €13 million, in the case of Nove Mesto nad Vahom it is €6 million, Surany €5.7 million and similar amounts, are an absolute economic boost that will help people, that will help towns," stressed Taraba. Board chairman of the Slovak Heat Producers Association Stanislav Janis welcomed the release of finances from the Modernization Fund for the heating industry. However, he disagrees with the minister's claim that there are losses of up to 50 percent in the heat distribution systems and people are paying for it. "This is not true, neither the percentages, nor that the excessive losses are paid by the people," he added. The maximum losses in the distribution systems are set by a norm and thus, according to Janis, in the worst case, the maximum losses set by the norm will be included in the heat price. "No norm allows 50-percent losses and no regulator will recognise such losses," he added. am/mcs