A resident of Pljevlja, Montenegro, pays more than 300 euros for a tonne of pellets and plans to burn coal during the coldest months this winter. Several residents say high pellet prices and difficulties obtaining supplies are prompting them to reconsider coal and wood, testing a municipal programme intended to move households away from more polluting fuels.
The resident put the price of coal at around 70 euros. He plans to keep using pellets but also activate a coal stove when more energy is needed to heat his home. Another resident intends to sell a pellet stove and switch to coal and wood.
For these households, the choice of fuel is primarily a question of cost and household budgets, rather than habit alone. If pellets remain considerably more expensive than coal, some residents could use both fuels while others may stop heating with pellets altogether. There are no figures for how many households have made, or plan to make, either change.
Municipal support and household costs
The Municipality of Pljevlja has operated a programme encouraging the use of more environmentally friendly fuels since 2015. It supported 280 residents in its first year and has received more than two million euros in municipal funding to date. Financial support for fuel purchases is intended to help households switch from coal and other polluting fuels to pellets, reducing emissions from individual heating systems.
Municipal data published in August 2026 recorded around 1,200 households with pellet stoves and boilers. The subsidy last year was 100 euros per pallet of pellets. The programme covers a limited quantity of fuel, while household needs over an entire winter are substantially greater.
For 2026, the municipality provided for a higher contribution towards pellet purchases. Under the programme decision, residents can receive up to 160 euros per pallet for no more than two pallets per household. The maximum subsidy is 320 euros for one household.
Milorad Mitrović, executive director of the Ecological Society “Breznica” and a Pljevlja environmentalist, said the local administration should assess whether to change or expand support if the return to coal continues. Without additional or revised measures, he warned, some of the results achieved in encouraging more environmentally friendly heating could be put at risk.
Subsidies can ease costs but may not offset the large price difference between pellets and coal, particularly for households that burn substantial amounts of fuel through winter, according to Mitrović. He said high prices and chronic pellet shortages had driven many households to take radical steps, describing their circumstances as “economic reality and bare poverty”.
That price gap leaves the municipality’s support covering only part of the fuel a household may need. The resident who plans to reactivate a coal stove expects to do so when consumption is highest, rather than abandon pellets entirely. The resident planning to sell a pellet stove faces a different choice: a full return to coal and wood.
Winter air quality
Mitrović warned that the most vulnerable residents, lacking affordable fuel, may burn “everything they can get hold of”, including old shoes and clothes, plastic and household waste. Burning those materials sharply increases toxic substances in the air and further endangers people who are already seriously ill and other vulnerable groups, he said.
People with lung diseases, asthma and cancer in Pljevlja are “condemned to breathe pure poison”, Mitrović said. The town has faced air pollution for years. Concentrations of suspended particles PM10 and PM2.5 and sulphur dioxide are particularly problematic during winter pollution episodes.
The Environmental Protection Agency has warned that stable atmospheric conditions, fog and weak air movement keep pollutants close to the ground. In January 2026, it again warned of very high concentrations of pollutants in the urban area of Pljevlja, particularly particulate matter and sulphur dioxide.
Individual heating systems that burn coal are among the town’s sources of emissions. More households using coal could make efforts to reduce winter pollution harder, but the actual impact cannot be reliably assessed without data on how many households change fuel and how much they consume.
Pljevlja has several thousand individual heating systems, making a gradual reduction in their number part of the long-term response to pollution. Longer-term measures require less dependence on those systems, development of district heating, and investment in heating infrastructure, energy efficiency and options residents can afford.
Until those measures are introduced, household heating choices will depend heavily on fuel prices and availability. Whether the municipality needs to revise or expand its support remains an open question if households continue returning to coal.
