In the first half of January, run of river Power Stations have produces 36 percent more than planned, primarily due to increased supply of water of the Danube. – The sale to the end beneficiaries is less than planned, because the days were warmer than average.
The fact that the business conditions in Serbia are changing and that the new legal frameworks are introduced, though slowly, but certainly.It is not the case that Serbia does not have the current “electricity situation” anymore, but simply, EPS does not have to take full care of that situation anymore. As public company, EPS retains its responsibility and obligations to achieve the planned production and supply of customers who are entitled to public supply, as well as to execute all the contractual obligations with large customers.
We had a long talk about this with the directors in the Directorate of the EPS for electricity trade and we hardly got the new formulation for this column title, at least for this issue. It wouldn’t be strange if that changes in the next issue. Our interlocutors, all engineers, strictly kept to the newly introduced terms, so called formats, and our journalist would like to write a text that the broad readers audience would understand. They insisted on the electricity portfolio, and the journalist explained that, for the interpretation of the word “portfolio”, especially in the power sector, he needed at least one page, just as much as he had planned for the description of the trends in production and sale of electricity to end customers. So, the report came down to the basic data on production and sales to the customers described so far as the electricity consumption in Serbia.
Jovica Vranić, Director of energy planning and management in EPS Directorate for trade, said that the total production of electricity in available capacities in EPS, during the first half of January, was as planned, except that the TPP on coal produced in accordance with the plan, and hydropower plants over-fulfilled the planned goals. The production increase from the Hydro Power Plants was helped by the water supply increase of the Danube, which was approximately 5000 m3 /s in the mid of the month, which is 2300 cc more than planned for this period. On the Drina catchment, the inflows of water were as planned. Thanks to water rising on the Danube, both HPP “Djerdap” provided the system with 36 percent more energy than it was balanced for the first half of January.
As far as the sale to the end beneficiaries is concerned, it should be explained first that all recent tariff customers remained the consumers of EPS electricity, but still, we cannot talk about the consumption and collective consumption, since the four customers, who take over the high voltage power, signed the contracts in accordance with the legal obligations. Our customers in this category used the recommendation of the Ministry to postpone the application of the statutory terms by 15 days. In such, newly established circumstances, EPS, during the first half of the January, sold 4.7 percent less electricity than balanced to the end beneficiaries.
Mr. Vranić explained that neither the market opening nor the hesitation of the part of the large customers about who to choose as their supplier, did affect the reduction in sales. The warm weather and 2.5 degrees warmer days than the average for January had the biggest influence. Daily average outdoor temperature during this period was 2.5 degrees, and 120-year average temperature for January was zero degrees.
As Vranić pointed out, the electricity sales reduction was also affected by a large numbers of non-working days in the first half of January and reduced industrial activity in Serbia. As the confirmation that the outdoor temperature had big impact on the energy consumption (from the aspect of EPS: on the sale), Mr. Vranić said that the critical days for the stability of the power system, November 18th (on the eve of St. Nikolas) and December 31st (on the eve of the New Year) passed without any difficulty and higher spending rebounds, because those days were warmer than usually. At the same time, of course, major problems experienced earlier would not have happened at all, even if the temperature had been well below zero, since in the past decade, the Electricity system of EPS strengthened significantly and got ready to bear the periodical shocks of high consumption.
For the beginning of the year, the most important thing is that the long drought, with the small inflows in the river catchment areas, is stopped so that the production of the run of river power stations has increased.
Source Serbia Energy Magazine
