Bosnia and Herzegovina’s RMU Banovići is preparing a 15 MW solar power plant on land previously used for mining waste, marking the coal producer’s first substantial move into renewable electricity generation.
The project is estimated at around €17.4 million and is designed primarily to reduce the company’s own electricity costs rather than operate solely as a merchant power plant. The planned solar facility could cover roughly half of RMU Banovići’s electricity demand, lowering exposure to market purchases while adding renewable generation to the company’s energy mix.
The investment is expected to form part of a wider €40 million programme supported by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, aimed at assisting coal-dependent areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina as they adjust to changes in the energy sector.
The location gives the project an additional rehabilitation dimension. Instead of requiring undeveloped land, the solar plant would reuse an area already affected by years of mining operations. The approach allows industrial land to be repurposed for power generation while creating a new productive use for a former waste disposal site.
RMU Banovići is not abandoning brown-coal production, but the solar project introduces a second energy business line and gives the company a degree of protection against future electricity-price volatility.
For coal-based companies across Southeast Europe, projects of this type may become an increasingly relevant transition model: existing industrial land, grid infrastructure and large internal power demand can make self-consumption solar projects easier to justify than entirely new standalone developments.
