The Fees Regulation on electricity got from renewable energy sources became effective after March 1st and the Serbia Power Utility Company EPS calculate electricity to the producers from whom purchase it on the price scale depending of the RES source. Incentive scheme is complex but profitable. Serbian Power Utility Company EPS purchased over 36 million kilowatt- hours which came from renewable sources.
How the households consumers electricity bills increased due to those kwh obtained from alternative sources, the consumer can see from the item – the incentive for RES (abbreviation for renewable energy sources).
According to the evidence presented by EPS, that company last year bought the RES electricity from 38 producers, who together collected sum of 4. 333. 333 EUR by selling. It is 36.184.436 kilowatt hours of electricity. In the EPS say that incomes of privileged electricity producers from renewable energy sources depend on the strength and type of their capacities, and the incentive height is determined by the acts which adopted the Serbian Government on the Ministry proposal. That electricity amounts that EPS purchases from renewable energy sources, compared to its total production, are still small.
It is good that EPS purchases electricity from alternative sources and it is committed on that by existing legal provisions. In fact, as it is known, Serbia still depends from energy export and it is characterized by irrational energy use. In this sense the Energy Low recognizes importance of renewable energy sources and encourages their production through feed- in tariffs. In this moment mainly the small consumers sell the electricity from renewable energy sources to EPS, and those are symbolic quantities. Apparently, they are producers that mainly produce electricity for their own needs, and that sell surplus to EPS. That is certainly good thing, but we will start to get more significant electricity quantities from RES only when big players construct the power gen plants. Those are capacities bigger than 100 megawatts, and they still do not exist in our region. The aim certainly should be attraction of big foreign investors in the area of renewable energy resources, but at the same time we have to know how big are our capacities and what can we offer on that plan.
For example, few years ago, Ministry of Energy issued permits for wind parks construction of 2. 400 megawatts and total potential with whom Serbia disposes is from 400 to 500 megawatts.
Otherwise, the regulation that previously was adopted by Serbian Government about incentive prices for electricity purchase from renewable sources became effective from March 1st. By that regulation, feed- in tariff for the electricity produced in wind parks was reduced from 9, 5 eurocents to 9, 2 eurocents. Also, the regulation provides that electricity from solar power plants would be purchased at prices ranged from 16, 25 to 20, 66 eurocents, instead previously maximum 23 eurocents. Feed-in tariff height depends on the type of installed capacity in the power plant and it is adjusted to the annual inflation amount in the euro area. In the natural gas case the indexation is done in accordance with the change in gas prices. The regulation provides that total amount of fee incentive, which consumer pays, would be calculated by multiplication of fee height, which is determined every year by special Government act, with measured amount of electricity consummation for the accounting period expressed in kilowatt- hours.
Source; Serbia Energy/EPS/MERZ
