Slovakia

The Programme for an Increased Usage of Biomass and Solar Energy in Households in Slovakia, which was launched in April 2009, has now exceeded its budget. Although applications were accepted until 30 October 2011, the Ministry of Economy had already announced on 27 October 2011 that the number of subsidy applications had overtaken the funds available for the programme. All submitted applications are going to be evaluated in order of their submission date. The map illustrates the geographical spread of the approved applications depending on the respective solar sector and is published by the Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency (SIEA).
Source: www.siea.sk

During the first eighteen months of Slovakia’s subsidy programme, 3,913 households applied for grants from it. According to the Slovak Agency of Innovation and Energy (SIEA), this means that from a total budget of EUR 8 million, EUR 4.3 million still remain for allocation. The “Programme for an increased usage of biomass and solar energy in households” started on 20 April 2009. The programme's applicants have been more interested in solar collectors than in biomass boilers: only 730 households applied for a subsidy for a biomass boiler, whereas 3,183 households applied for a solar system.

In most of the National Renewable Energy Plans (NREAPs), solar thermal was not a priority. Only 8 countries announced significant collector area and growth rates (see news here). solarthermalworld.org asked Xavier Noyon, Secretary General of the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF), about the reasons behind this lack of consideration, and about the actions which have to be taken now.
Photo: ESTIF

Solar exterior with collectors produced in Slovakia: The company Thermosolar has just recently invested EUR 1.5 million in upgrading the machinery in its factory in Žiar nad Hronom, in order to increase productivity and reach a manufacturing capacity of 500,000 m² per year.
Photo: Thermosolar

This is the final report of the EU funded project East-GSR (2006-2008), created to support the development of the solar thermal market in 5 Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). One of the main objectives of the project was to promote the performance guarantee approach for large solar thermal systems focusing on the example of the Guaranteed Solar Results (GSR) contract. The project was coordinated by the French Energy Agency ADEME.

In 2008, the global solar thermal market grew by a significant 35%. The main reasons behind such a strong upward trend were the high growth rates of glazed water collectors in China (+35 %), Europe (+63 %) and North America (+42 %). Graphic: AEE Intec

Just over a year ago, on March 20 2009, Slovakia launched its first subsidy programme for solar collectors and biomass boilers: After a modification of the formal requirements and the amount of subsidies one can receive, the programme’s figures have shown a great improvement lately.
Figure: SEA

This 36-month project aims to encourage the emergence of a sustainable solar thermal market using the Guaranteed Solar Results (GSR) procedure in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The documents on this website provide an analysis of the local situations in each country. The document looks in detail at the Solar Hot Water Market before mapping sectoral issues (e.g. in the hotel and housing sectors) in the countries.