Bitola’s heating future: a pipeline to nowhere or solar solutions?

Both district heating and individual heating systems in the Western Balkans heavily rely on burning fossil fuels and using wood as a heating source. 97 per cent of the district heating systems in the region are based on fossil fuels, and only 3 per cent on renewable energy sources. They are mostly quite old and operate with high network losses which makes them inefficient, while significantly contributing to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.  

In North Macedonia, currently Skopje is the only city with a district heating system, and that one is operating on fossil gas. The southern city of Bitola unfortunately aspires to follow in its footsteps to use fossil fuels for heating, using the coal-fired power plant for now, with a prospect of replacing it with gas at some point in the future. 

The infamous 40-year-old idea for a district heating system in Bitola 

At the beginning of November 2023, representatives of the Government, the state-owned ESM utility and the Toplifikacija Bitola district heating company held a press conference to mark the completion of the construction works on the pipeline connecting the largest thermal power plant in North Macedonia, REK Bitola, to the city. The introduction of a central district heating system for the city of Bitola by using thermal energy from REK Bitola is an idea that has been around for four decades, since REK Bitola was built.   

The first phase of the project to bring the pipeline to the city was realized with a EUR 40 million loan from Germany’s KFW Bank, signed back in 2015, as well as an additional EUR 7 million of ESM’s own funds. It was also part of the Single Project List 2022 of North Macedonia’s ‘strategic’ investments.  

The construction of the pipeline, as the Director of Toplifikacija, Bitola Kozarov, recently claimed in the media, ‘will continue along the streets of Bitola and in the next 18 months, 10.5 kilometres of pipeline is planned to be built’. The district heating project is anticipated to provide thermal energy of 100 megawatts (MW), first connecting 35 state-owned facilities detected as the largest polluters using solid fuels, such as municipal buildings, schools, kindergartens etc. It also includes the old heating network that used to be connected to eight heavy oil boiler rooms, and used to supply about 3,000 apartments in the city. The system is planned to be put into operation during the heating season 2025/2026 and in parallel the pipeline is to be extended to heat residential buildings in Bitola as well. 

A slight catch – what happens when the coal plant closes? 

North Macedonia’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) foresees a coal phase-out in 2027, with the possibility of a delay until the end of 2029. That’s six years from now. Quite why ESM decided to build a district heating system based on a coal plant that will close so soon is anyone’s guess, as is why the government and KfW decided to support it. 

One reason might be ESM’s plans for a gas power plant at the site. Building a new gas plant is a costly idea that will only create dependence on another fossil fuel, while renewable energy sources are becoming much more affordable and accessible. And it currently appears to be at a very early stage.  

North Macedonia’s energy strategy says between 0 MW and 245 MW of new gas plants will be built in the country, depending on the scenario, but does not specify the location.  

But the draft energy strategy implementation programme – which is supposed to implement the energy strategy, not re-write it, and which was never officially adopted – says the country should build 450 MW of new gas power plants in any case. It mentions plants in both Negotino and Bitola. A few months before the draft programme was published, plans for an 800 MW plant in Bitola were also announced in the media, but don’t appear in any strategic documents. 

Although the gas plans for Bitola are often presented as a ‘conversion’ of the existing coal plant, this is misleading. It would entail most, if not all, of the important parts of the plant being replaced by completely new facilities.  

As anticipated by ESM, unit 1 will be shut down in 2026 and meanwhile the gas power plant will be built, independently from the operation of REK Bitola, for production of both electricity and heating. However, this seems optimistic to say the least. 

In 2021, media reported on the preparation of a feasibility study for a cogeneration gas power plant with a capacity of 250 MW at Bitola. Consequently, a public procurement process took place for a feasibility study for Bitola and ‘Energetika’ Skopje, published by ESM on 29 July 2021. However, a few months later it was annulled due to unforeseen changes in the budget of the contracting authority.  

To be, or not to be? 

The most recent claims by the Government confirm their plans for a new gas cogeneration power plant at Bitola, but this time, it would be able to operate on hydrogen in future, too – opening a whole new range of problems.  

The government’s revised Single Project List 2022 even admits that construction of a new 250 MW cogeneration gas power plant in Bitola is indeed a non-mature project. So far it seems to have no feasibility study, no environmental impact assessment, no gas pipeline actually reaching the site, and no financing – not very promising for a project that is supposed to supply Bitola with heat starting in a little over two years’ time. 

If the coal plant really does close, the pipeline will simply end up leading nowhere. 

New fossil fuel-based infrastructure is a thing of the past  

Yes, indeed, investments in renewable energy sources will bring the country closer to its decarbonization goals, but investments in capacities and infrastructure that push further dependence on another fossil fuel – gas – certainly will not. 

Giving up on old ideas that are not relevant and feasible today is necessary for the country to move towards investments in renewable energy sources, for both heating and electricity production, which will bring greater security and independence of the energy sector.

Fresh proposals for Bitola 

For instance, an Analysis of alternatives to coal-based central heating in the Bitola Region developed by Vanja Dzinlev, Energy Researcher at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, examines the current heating situation in the Bitola Region, covering the municipalities of Bitola, Mogila and Novaci. It offers alternative solutions using decentralized systems. The findings of the analysis suggest that the most feasible option for heating would be photovoltaic systems coupled with inverter air conditioners for both apartments and houses. The options provided in the study are both economically and environmentally sustainable alternatives for individual heating.  

Additionally, it offers specific recommendations for multi-apartment buildings and municipal institutions to form so-called energy communities to lower their heating and energy expenses, and in future, even generate some income. 

The analysis was recently presented to university students at the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies in Bitola, as well as at the IT Crowd co-working space with young professionals from the IT industry. Students and young IT professionals can play a key role in the energy transformation of the Bitola region. Renewable technologies in the energy sector, especially those related to the development of community energy, are inevitably connected to the development of new technological and software solutions for energy and heat production. 

In addition, other district heating systems incorporating sustainable renewables can be found in different countries around Europe, such as Denmark, Sweden, Hungary etc. Such examples are becoming reality in the Western Balkans region as well, with the approval of the district heating project in Prishtina worth EUR 23.2 million, co-funded by EU as part of the Western Balkans Invest Framework (WBIF), with KfW as the lead financial partner. 30 MW of solar capacity including storage is planned, with up to 38,000 residents who will directly benefit from being connected to Pristina’s district heating system.  

Investments must be directed towards clean heating solutions based on sustainable renewables 

Continuing to pour money into fossil fuel-based power and heating infrastructure directly contradicts the green energy transformation and decarbonization goals that the leaders of the Western Balkan countries committed to achieve by 2050 by signing the Sofia Declaration. Thus, both governments and international financial institutions must turn their full focus and investments towards clean and modern heating solutions offering greater sustainability and security for the region. Such action will unlock the potential for new types of jobs and businesses related to renewables and smart systems, as well as for young people to become an active part of the green transformation by working on modern heating solutions.