Kolašin Municipality (population 9,900) lies in the mountainous area of Montenegro's Gora National Park, one of Europe's largest virgin forests. Well-connected to national road and rail transport routes and not far from the international airport in Podgorica, Kolašin is one of the major mountain tourist attractions in Montenegro. The town experiences severe winters that require an eight-month heating season. Residents and industries use wood, oil, coal, and electricity for heating. There have been ten large heating boilers, using oil and coal as their main energy source, that served the needs of hotels, schools, hospitals, and a number of municipal buildings. Most private houses use firewood for domestic heating and electricity to heat water.
The uncontrolled burning of moist wood and the use of heating oil and coal have endangered the environment as their combustion results in significant quantities of CO2 (estimated at approximately 1,000 tonnes per annum) and other harmful gases (NOx) along with micro-particles.
WBIF has provided a technical assistance grant for the preparation of the Feasibility Study, including the Preliminary Design for a new, centralised district heating system based on biomass consisting of a district heating plant, a heat distribution pipework system, water supply and treatment substations, heat exchangers and meters, a biomass collection, storage and delivery system, ash disposal site, and DH connections.
