Brief

The city of Pančevo, with its 84,408 inhabitants, hosts the Balkans’ largest solar district heating plant. It started to be built in 2017 with 360 solar collectors placed over 906m² of land and got further expanded in 2020.

Technology

The Pančevo solar thermal plant consists of 558 solar collectors with a total solar thermal capacity of 1 MWth and an annual energy output of 900 MWh. It currently fulfils 15% of the total demand for hot sanitary water in Pančevo. With an operational lifespan of 25-30 years and minimal operating costs, the cost of hot water is now lower than that of natural gas.

With support from EBRD and SOLID, the local utility plans to further expand the solar field to encompass 35,000 m² of collector area and include a thermal storage unit of 150,000m³. The BigSolar Pančevo project has the potential to be a flagship initiative in Western Balkan countries, contributing significantly to CO2 reduction in district heating, with 200 tonnes of carbon emissions avoided every year.

Financial Structure

The money for the 2017 phase of the project came from the EU’s IPA funds as part of cross-border cooperation between Serbia and Romania. The expansion in 2020 received support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The total investment, thus also including the 2020 addition, is estimated at 600,000€.