The National Theatre invested 31 million in energy savings

Prague - The National Theatre invested 31.3 million crowns in the reconstruction of the energy systems of the historic building, the New Stage, the operational building, and the restaurant building. In the first year of the energy-saving program, they managed to save over five million crowns, which corresponds to nearly 27 percent of the original annual costs. The costs for economic and ecological measures will be repaid by the National Theatre by 2017. This was announced to journalists today by its director Ondřej Černý.
    "Every evening we deal with the ecology of the spirit, now we have entered the field of traditional ecology. This makes sense, as recent events around gas supplies have shown," Černý stated.
    The new energy system includes, for example, more economical processing of waste energy, the use of waste heat from the oil hydraulic stage technology, or the recovery of heat from air conditioning, which will save 60,000 cubic meters of natural gas annually.
    The first stage will invest in energy-saving measures and the use of renewable energy sources using the EPC method, where the supplier guarantees minimum savings. They will cover any difference between actual and guaranteed savings.
    The partner of the National Theatre in this project is the company ENESA, which guarantees the theatre minimum savings of 50.4 million crowns over a period of ten years. The theatre plans to use the savings for repayments. According to the chairman of the board of ENESA, Ivo Slavotínek, the effect of the measures will thus be repaid from the saved costs.
    "In this way, we are also thinking of our successors, as we reduce costs for the theatre’s budget even for the period when we will no longer be here," Černý told ČTK.
    The budget of the National Theatre this year is approximately 700 million crowns.
    The EPC project is further developing, and during the contract's validity, additional measures are being implemented, such as the installation of photovoltaic panels on the roof of the operational building of the National Theatre or energy-saving lighting with an average return on investment of two years, which will provide an annual saving of 460 MWh of electricity and 542 tons of CO2 emissions.
    According to Černý, the National Theatre has already initiated the EPC project for the Estates Theatre and its other facilities.
    The ecological activities of the National Theatre were also recognized by the European Union. Its Commissioner for Energy, Andris Piebalgs, presented a plaque of the GreenLight program to representatives of the National Theatre last week. The international GreenLight program was launched by the European Commission in 2000 to support the expansion of energy-efficient lighting systems.