World Bank lends Serbia $50 mln to back green transition

The World Bank provided to Serbia a $50 million (45.5 million euro) loan to support the country's shift to environment-friendly energy sources, especially regarding the heating systems, and its efforts to reduce air pollution, it said.

Under the project, named Scaling Up Residential Clean Energy (SURCE), Serbian citizens will be provided cleaner and more efficient heating solutions and rooftop solar photovoltaic systems, the World Bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

Some 25,000 households are expected to directly benefit from the project, while the solar photovoltaic installations are expected to increase Serbia's installed renewable energy capacity by 4MW, the statement read.

"The residential sector in Serbia has a large untapped potential for energy efficiency improvements: households account for about one-third of Serbia's final energy consumption, with about three-quarters of the energy they consume used for heating purposes," Nicola Pontara, World Bank country manager for Serbia, commented.

(1 euro = 1.0989 U.S. dollars)

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