Serbia’s power utility EPS no longer dependent on imports, acting CEO claims

Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) is importing much less electricity this winter than last one and it is not dependent on imports, according to Miroslav Tomašević, acting CEO of Serbia’s state-owned coal and power producer.

The consequences of the recent outage in the Kolubara coal basin that occurred several days ago are being solved and coal production should get back to normal soon, according to Miroslav Tomašević. Namely, a large excavator got stuck due to a mudslide, which lowered lignite output.

“If we compared the current winter with the last one, EPS is importing negligible amounts of electricity. It means we were well prepared for this season,” the chief executive officer told public broadcaster RTS.

CEO of Serbia’s EPS revealed that the country exported more electricity yesterday than it imported

He noted that electricity consumption in Serbia came in at 127 GWh yesterday. Power imports for January were booked earlier at convenient prices, Tomašević added, but he pointed out that the company imported 3.7 GWh yesterday while exporting 8.8 GWh.

“The production at EPS is currently between 122 GWh to 125 GWh, which is sufficient for covering consumption in Serbia, so EPS is no longer dependent on power imports,” the CEO stressed.

Coal stockpiles at key units in the Nikola Tesla thermal power plant complex (TENT A and TENT B) near Belgrade are at almost one million tons in total, compared to the required 950,000 tons. Tomašević said EPS produces 90,000 to 95,000 tons.

Investors need to be incentivized to build power plants and EPS must be enabled to buy the electricity from them

EPS’s boss asserted that its first wind park, with a capacity of 66 MW, would be put into operation in 2024, underscoring that it is important to incentivize private investors to build wind parks and to give the government-controlled utility the preemptive right to purchase the electricity. He singled it out as the main goal, rather than making EPS invest and own every power plant.

Tomašević said he expects results from the involvement of Norwegian consulting company Rystad Energy, hired by the Government of Serbia, and expressed readiness for EPS to act in accordance with the government’s decisions.

EPS has experts and they just need to be given appropriate positions to show what the company can do, and it can do a lot, as evident over the previous days, the acting chief added and expressed the opinion that good results have been achieved since his appointment.