“Serbia is now at the liberalization level in which Croatia was in 2008th. Croatian Power Utility Company has been a joint stock company”, but according to Tomislav Seric, HEP president, “it is a difficult time and great transformation”.
“Offer and demand form the prices, but the business owner is the government, and she has some social demands. The main problem in Croatia is to educate customers. They still think that the electricity is social category. There, no one knows how much electricity costs, or how much they spend, but they know how much is their account”, Seric transmits experiences from Croatia. “It is difficult to implement liberalization when the mentality remains the same. The question is whether we want a company that will provide hidden subsidies to its own detriment, whether we want a company that will provide jobs to all or company to successfully operate in the market “.
Seric notes that the EPS advantage and HEP drawback is that his company already operates under the EU rules, so it is enabled to finance the new capacities construction with the long-term guaranteed electricity purchase. He points out that, although the advantage of using lignite are low variable costs, in the future, much will depend on the CO2emission.
Criticizing EU policy, which has completely liberated markets and then introduced a non-market ” feed-in ” tariffs , so disabling investments in conventional energy sources Seric said : ” In the EU companies currently sell assets, consolidate and wait for the situation to be clearer. The only good thing is that the development of renewable energy technology is stimulated “.
Source; Serbia Energy See Desk