Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) — Serbia’s revised incentives for using
renewable energy sources will help add 1,092 megawatts of
available power by 2020, an Energy Ministry official said.
The increase by 11.6 percent of Serbia’s current capacity
is what the Balkan nation needs by the end of the decade to
improve its energy mix under a European Union-backed regional
agreement, Deputy Energy Minister Dejan Trifunovic said at a
conference in Belgrade today. About 500 new megawatts is
expected from wind farms, 200 megawatts from large hydro plants,
200 megawatts from small hydro facilities, 100 megawatts fueled
by biomass and the rest from solar and geothermal sources.
“Our estimate is that investments in new capacity, mostly
from the private sector, will amount to some 2 billion euros
($2.7 billion)” by 2020, Trifunovic said.
New feed-in tariffs, incentives to purchase electricity
from renewables at higher rates, took effect in Serbia this
week. Hydro plants of up to 30 megawatts are now eligible for
the support, up from 10 megawatts, with the subsidized rate up
by about a third to between 7.4 euro cents and 13.7 euro cents
per kilowatt hour, depending on size of plant.
The tariff for wind farms was reduced to 9.2 euro cents
from 9.5 euro cents per kilowatt hour, while the rate for solar
parks bigger than 0.5 megawatts is at 16.25 euro cents, reduced
by almost a third on falling cost of equipment. The tariffs,
adjustable for inflation, are guaranteed over 12 years and
producers won’t bear the cost of grid-balancing.
Under the agreement with Vienna-based Energy Community,
Serbia is to increase share of renewables in its energy
consumption to 27 percent by 2020 from 21.2 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Misha Savic in Belgrade at
msavic2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James M. Gomez at
jagomez@bloomberg.net
