Located in middle Europe, the Czech Republic has been at the crossroad of European routes for millennia, enabling the exchange of information and stimulating the development of crafts. In the last century, Czech lands belonged to the industrial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which continued until the end of the Second World War.

After the Second World War, the industry composition turned into heavy industry, producing 28 Mt of coal and 10 Mt of steel for the socialist block. Heavy industry based on burning coal of inferior quality caused extensive environmental damage. Early after the break of the communist regime, heavy industry went bankrupt, bringing a rapid decline in emissions of harmful gases. Such historical change may not be considered significant, but it must be mentioned considering the starting point for calculating the required emission cutdown agreed upon by the Kyoto protocol and EU regulation policy on greenhouse gasses.

More specifically, from the agreed 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 compared to 1990 levels, the industry's transformation accomplished a 25 percent cut through ten years after the so called Velvet revolution. The further industrial transformation led to advanced technologies with smaller energy consumption. Commissioning of the pumped storage hydropower plant Dlouhé stráně augmented by governmental programs on energy conservation and heating directly related to housing, support of biogas plants supporting local agriculture, or a small share of solar energy production were sufficient to accomplish further goals connected to emission reduction.

These relatively easily gained achievements led to no further ambitious goals of the Czech political representation in the further transformation of the national energy sector. However, the situation rapidly changed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the unpredictability of gas and oil supplies. After that, the Czech government started to prepare a legal framework supporting renewable sources.

These are mainly based on well-established technologies such as solar power generation or communal energy sharing. However, the spread of new technologies, such as hydrogen production, is still hampered by an obsolete legislative and regulatory framework. Concerning the Czech political and executive environment, introducing new technologies, particularly those mastered in the 21st century, must be firmly supported by commissioned appliances and boosted by participating industrial entities.

Author: DanuP-2-Gas ERDF PP8 - VSTE

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The Danube Region holds huge potential for sustainable generation and storage of renewable energy. However, to this date region is highly dependent on energy imports, while energy efficiency, diversity and renewables share are low. In line with the EU climate targets for 2030 and the targets of the European Strategy for the Danube Region, DanuP-2-Gas supports transnational energy planning by strengthening generation and storage strategies for renewables in the Danube Region via advanced sector coupling technologies.