Slovakia considers exiting coal in 2023
At the One Planet summit in December in Paris, Environment Minister László Sólymos declared 2023 as the target year for Slovakia’s coal phase-out in both the mining and power sectors.
The environment ministry’s draft environmental strategy 2030, released the same week, argues for a “progressive phase-out of power and heat production from coal” due to local air pollution, calling Slovakia’s annual €100 million subsidies for coal power “environmentally damaging”.
Slovak electricity consumers pay approximately €100 million every year to fund feed-in prices for coal power. The country has two coal power plants but only one of them – Nováky – receives subsidies to burn domestic lignite, mostly produced in three mines in Upper Nitra.
The private mining company and the authorities have long hailed domestic coal as a contribution to the country’s security of energy supplies and electricity balancing, as well as to regional employment. Around 4,000 people work in the mines but the company claims 11,000 jobs in total depend on the Slovak coal industry.
