While the Ministry of Energy claims that EPS would not have had to import electricity today if it had built the capacity for clean energy on time, experts believe that it is difficult to say that wind and sun would be enough to cover all the shortfalls.
Apart from the lack of coal and electricity from thermal power plants, the Electric Power Industry of Serbia is also to blame for the fact that we do not have enough green energy. Because if EPS had built plants that use wind and solar energy on time, today those capacities could compensate for the missing electricity. He would not have to import electricity, and he could make surpluses, the Ministry of Energy told Politika in response to the question whether green kilowatts could help us to reduce the import of increasingly expensive electricity and coal.
When asked if those who produce and sell green kilowatts have an obligation to first offer EPS those quantities, they say that the producer of any product, including electricity, decides on the placement, that is, to whom it will be sold.
However, the new laws in the field of energy, especially the Law on the Use of Renewable Energy Sources, offers EPS a solution for efficient and affordable provision of new replacement capacities, which implies that this public company is a 100 percent owner or majority co-owner of power plant construction projects that produce green energy. emphasize from the Ministry of Energy.
In this way, they add, EPS would manage production according to its own needs, and all the produced electricity could be used in Serbia, and in case of surplus, it could be exported and make additional earnings for EPS.
When asked whether green kilowatts would be cheaper for EPS if it were to buy them from those who produce them here or if that price is the same as the one on the stock market, Željko Marković, M.Sc., senior consultant at “Diloit” and former long-time director at EPS, answers in the affirmative.
– Of course they would be cheaper. Small producers would be exposed to many additional costs if they were to place their energy on the stock exchange, so they usually arrange long-term purchase of their production with suppliers. In such situations, the risk of price fluctuations, energy placement, balancing costs and other expenses is transferred to the supplier, so the price at which the supplier buys energy is lower – explains Marković.
He emphasizes that it is difficult to answer whether EPS, if it had built some of its capacities for renewable energy sources (OIE), would therefore import less electricity, stating that it also depends on the size of the capacities that would be built.
– We can generally say that it is necessary to build four to eight times larger capacities from variable RES (solar and wind) in order to replace the capacity from a conventional thermal power plant. In order to replace one megawatt-hour from a thermal power plant, it is necessary to build four to eight megawatts from variable renewable energy sources. The need to import electricity would certainly be lower if we had more built-up capacity from RES. I am not referring only to EPS, but also to the private sector, which we also need with its investments in green kilowatts – notes Marković.
As of August 1, the fee for green energy was increased from 0.435 to 0.801 dinars per kilowatt, which all citizens pay through their electricity bill. This means that for a monthly consumption of 400 kilowatts, the fee, which until now was 170 dinars, will be around 320. With this move, the government helped EPS, which allocated a lot of money just to cover the costs of green energy, because what the citizens paid until recently, it was nowhere near enough to pay those who produced electricity from RES.
As it turns out, when new megawatts of green energy from those who build solar and wind farms appear on the network, it is realistic to expect the price of these fees to rise again.
The new price increase will only come from September 1, when the price of a kilowatt will rise by 6.5 percent without VAT, so electricity in the green zone will cost 6.89 dinars, in the higher tariff or 1.724 dinars in the lower one. In the blue zone, the higher tariff will be 10.34 dinars in the future, and the lower tariff will be 2.586. The most expensive electricity will still be for those who are in the red zone, and they will pay a higher tariff of 20.88 dinars, and a lower tariff of 5,172 dinars, writes Politika.
