Bosnia: Electricity exports and regional cross border relay

The electricity deficit, the unused resources and the lack of investments in infrastructure is the shortest description of the state within the energy sector in the countries of the region. Whereas the electricity consumption grows, and all projections indicate towards the trend of a further increase, no new power plants have been built for more than two decades, which is a problem that will soon come onto the agenda so as to reduce the import dependence.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only net exporter of electricity within the region. In 2013, it is electricity that was the export product number one in BiH, since the increase in the export rate amounted to as much as 240 percent in this year.

However, the data of the Agency for Statistics of BiH show that, within the first eight months of this year, the export was lower by 40 percent than within the same period of the previous year. So, from January to September last year, 179 million euros worth of electricity was exported, and 105 million euros this year.

Simultaneously, almost 8 percent less electricity (6.61 gigawatt-hours) was generated in comparison with the year 2013 (7.17 gigawatt-hours). This was caused by bad hydrological circumstances and a reduced generation of electricity from hydro power plants.

In BiH, the total electricity generation capacities amount to 3.800 megawatts, of which 46 percent is provided by thermal power facilities and the rest by hydro power plants. In 2012, 6.3 million tons of lignite were produced and the same amount of brown coal. The proven lignite reserves amount to 1.272 million tons, because of which coal is expected to remain a dominant energy resource in BiH in the following period, too. By the construction of new thermal power capacities – the TPP Stanari, Tuzla 7 and Ugljevik 3, the export capacity of BiH will increase significantly.

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