As a result of successful cooperation between the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) and the Regional Development Agency Srem (RDA Srem), the final conference of the project „Mapping local spatial, infrastructure, resource and logistic support for the production of electricity and/or thermal energy from biomass in Srem“, financed by the Embassy of Finland, was held on 17 March 2015 in Ruma.
The meeting, attended by representatives of all the Srem municipalities as well as representatives of Srem institutions interested in the availability and use of biomass, was opened by Mr. Djordje Stanicic, Secretary General of SCTM.
The audience was then addressed by the Ambassador of Finland to Serbia, HE Pekka Orpana, who emphasized that Finland is a country that 40% of energy gets from renewable sources with a view of further development in the field of biomass utilization, and therefore funding of the project of using biomass in Srem is one way of support of the Republic of Finland to the development of renewable energy sources in Serbia . His Excellency stressed the importance of recently finished project, noting that this is the one of the most important projects in this area funded by the Embassy of Finland in Serbia, and announced that this project will be presented at the upcoming conference „Sustainable growth through the development of biomass „, which will be held in late March in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.
Director of RDA Srem, Milan Miric, stated value of the project as the base document for the application and use of biomass in Srem, since municipalities do not have the resources necessary to fund projects in this area on their own. This project was preceded by the creation of Mapping Study Preconditions (physical, infrastructural and resource prerequisites) for the production and use of biogas in the Srem region.
The presentation of the project with the final results gave Miodrag Gluscevic, senior associate of the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities and Head of Municipal and issues of urbanism and the environment, while Maja Matejic, portfolio manager for Energy at UNDP, emphasized the role of UNDP as a partner in the implementation of this project. She also announced a new project as a result of cooperation between UNDP and the Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia, which will deal with the introduction of energy management and improving energy efficiency. In this regard, she informed about the opening of a public invitation by the line ministry for grants for investment in plants for the production of thermal energy.
Since the realization of the this project proved to be very successsful, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities-Union of Towns and Municipalities of Serbia and Regional Development Agency Srem also used this opportunity to sign a Memorandum of Cooperation that will regulate the cooperation in the field of development of public utilities, environmental environment, utility energy, energy efficiency and renewable energy at local and regional level in the region of Srem.