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City Bijeljina

Study of district heating in the City of Bijeljina

Significant demographic changes due to recent historical events and the location of the City of Bijeljina contributed to accelerated development of the urban part of the city.
 
With increasing number of inhabitants in the city, increased requirements for residential space emerged together with the need for accompanying infrastructure. Intensive development and urbanisation of the City of Bijeljina, followed by general increase of standard and comfort, led to increased consumption of all forms of energy, so it is very important to find the best solution for the energy supply system for heating residential, business, and other buildings.
 
Only a small part of Bijeljina is covered with the district heating system, which is supplied by the heat from the District Heating Plant. The District Heating Plant has two coal-fired hot water boilers of 3.3 MW each, which are very well maintained, but very old and in bad condition.
 
Larger part of the City of Bijeljina is heated by individual fireplaces and individual boiler rooms. There is no accurate information on the number, condition and type of these heat sources. Also, there is no accurate information regarding the type and amount of fuel consumed during the heating season.
 
Several studies provided information based on assessment, not actual research.
 
The fact is that the air quality worsens during the heating season due to intensive burning of wood, coal and other types of solid fuels.
 
Small number of individual boiler rooms is newer and has satisfactory characteristics both in terms of the degree of efficiency and in terms of environmental impact or greenhouse gas emissions.
 
In parts of the city where people use kitchen stoves as heat sources there is a significant concentration of smoke and soot in the air during the heating season. This type of heating has extremely low efficiency level.
 
Increased heat consumption is also caused by poor thermal insulation of existing old buildings, and the percentage of these buildings is high in the area included in the study.
 
The result is very expensive heating, extremely high level of air pollution during the heating season, increased consumption of wood for heating which is an additional burden for already poor forest resources of the municipality, etc.
 
The District Heating Plant cannot heat additional buildings due to lack of heating pipelines and low capacity.
 
Considering the existing practice and modern solutions, these problems are possible to solve through a centralised heating system for buildings and preparation of consumable hot water.
 
This type of system would decrease the pollution of the city during the heating season and provide cheaper heating.
 
In addition to building centralised heating system for buildings, an increase of thermal insulation of existing buildings through energy efficiency measures imposes itself as the next priority.
 
This would significantly decrease the consumption of various fuels, which would surely contribute to lower air pollution and to lower costs of heating of buildings.