Peculiarities of energy situation in Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is one of the countries who tend to become a part of European Union. And to reach this aim it is necessary to fulfill a number of tasks, among which is to gain energy generation and utilization safe for the environment. Nowadays, the only way to attain the objective is to use alternative energy sources, the demand for which is rapidly growing.

It can be stated for sure that the Slovak Republic is not constrained in these resources, especially biomass resources. So, biomass energy market is of a great interest for the country, because it combines benefits in three spheres simultaneously: economic, environmental and social.

Recent studies have revealed that the share of renewables will rise to 5% in 2010, of which 40% belong to biomass energy (30 petajoule (PJ), but maximum capacity of biomass energy amounts to a range between 100 and 400 PJ/year.
Studying the overall trends in energy consumption in Slovakia, it is obviously seen that the final energy consumption was 491 PJ for the 1999. Heat and fuel consumption (83 %) were possessing 407 PJ, while the electricity consumption accounting for the remaining 84 PJ. About 270 PJ is accounted for through conversion and other loses, and energy stock change.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that bio-energy market in the Slovak Republic is facing plenty of barriers on the way to prosperity. But there are several factors that will contribute to the increase of the competitiveness of this market, such as: steady growth of prices for natural gas and electricity, conditioned by requirements of international market, and the fact that fossil fuels, especially brown coal, will be significantly charged with environmental taxes.

Nowadays, 90% of the total primary energy supply what makes 761 PJ (1999) is imported, where brown coal and hard coal cover only 15 % each of the total figure. The share of natural gas, in its turn, which is imported from Russia, advance all the time and supposed to exceed 30 % in 2010.

The use of fossil fuels in different industrial areas is also having lots of imperfections. For instance, the coal based plants are mostly having low efficiency and high environmental pollution levels. Utilization of natural gas is also characterized by a range of substantial drawbacks:
• CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, appearing due to combustion, cause global warming;
• trade balance is always influenced by rising prices for natural gas; the development of local economy is left aside;
• high cost of the establishment of a gas network, especially in small villages and rural areas.