The city of Valjevo is situated in western Serbia about 90 km from the capital, Belgrade. The city is the main administrative and economic centre of the Kolubara region and has approx. 97 thousand inhabitants. The city lies in the lowlands of the river Kolubara and the vast majority of the city is surrounded by mountains that causes insufficient air circulation.

As a consequence of this, the environment is extremely polluted by combustion gases from local heating sources, especially in the winter season.
The fuel used in this region is poor quality brown coal – lignite, wood, fuel oil – mazut, light fuel oil; a part of the population uses electric energy – convector heating. The availability of natural gas (as an alternative) is unrealistic in the near future due to the mountainous terrain and the distance to the nearest connection point (about 80 km).

Moreover, poor air quality results in the incidence of diseases related to airways, cancer and etc. In 2003, the city of Valjevo to address these problems prepared a project study on the city central heating. Recently, a new central boiler house on the periphery of the city was built and this new heat distribution system currently supplies about 40 per cent of the city’s heat demand. As a result of this fact about 30 local boiler houses, which had contributed significantly to air pollution, were cancelled.

The project aim is to connect the renovated municipal hospital to the central heating system. There will be newly constructed a pipeline from the thermal power supply to the operating steam boiler plant in the hospital (in length of approx. 1 km). The hospital currently uses two fuel oil boilers; one for heating the building and the other for water heating. Both of the boilers are very outdated and they are one of the major polluters of air in this region. The implementation of this project will shut down both the outdated fuel oil boilers. More concretely, the existing boiler, which provides heating of the building, will be completely cancelled due to the connection of the hospital to the central heating system. The boiler providing water heating will be replaced by a new boiler of the same parameters. During the project, an energy audit of the hospital will be conducted, including a technical and economic assessment of the potential for energy savings. By the construction of a new hot-water pipe in length of about 1 km will also connected the housing estate of Milorad Pavlović to the central heating system.