As the first city in Slovenia to join the covenant of Mayors, Velenje has long been conscious of its role in combatting climate change. Despite its history as a traditionally coal mining region. Velenje is looking to the future and hopes to become a national centre of renewable energy. To support this goal the city is planning to close down the local coal mine. However, Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, Andrej Vizjak has warned of the challenges still ahead. Speaking in the National Council last month he cautioned that energy consumption in the region is growing and renewable energy production must be escalated to prevent outages. The ministry is reviewing plans and aims to sign the gradual mine closing into law before the end of the year. 

To support Velenje through this transition process we at the local energy company KSSENA is taking part in the Horizon 2020 project procuRE as a lead partner. The project aims to make energy retrofit to 100% RES produced on-site affordable and replicable. For the Šalek Valley and Slovenia in general this would mean a much reduced load on the network as renovated buildings would be self-sufficient.

 The project is currently in the process of collecting input and reaching out to suppliers.