Improved district heating service in the Slovak Republic

The client is the private district heating company in the city of Zvolen, Slovak Republic, accounting for over 40,000 inhabitants. The company decided to replace old, poorly insulated heat distribution pipes to decrease heat losses, breakages, production costs and to improve the service.

The SlovSEFF team performed the project analysis, assessed its potential for energy savings, the financial-technical parameters and profitability. The final project consisted of replacement of almost 1,250 meters of pipes with about 600 meters of pre-insulated pipes.

The $315,142 SlovSEFF investment allowed the company to reduce energy consumption by over 25 per cent, equivalent to a total of 948 MWh per year of natural gas and 1.3 MWh per year of electricity. These savings amount to €55,000 savings per year. The investment will be repaid from energy savings in less than six years, turning the cash-flows into income for years to come.

This project improves the company’s financial standing and allows further modernisation of the heat supply system and even more energy savings with improved service quality. It also provides clear profitability and repayment benchmarks to motivate other district heating companies to invest in heat supply modernisation.