The Acting Director General of Serbian stateowned power utility EPS said that in the first ten months of this year, the company recorded net profit of almost 134 million euros, which is, according to him, 126 million euros above the planned net profit for this period.
Grcic said at the press conference that on 1 January 2017, EPS will have some 422 million euros on its account, of which 81 million euros will be transferred to the state budge as taxes. He also said that EPS’ earnings from the sale of electricity on power exchanges in the region amounted to 76.6 million euros until the second half of December.
Grcic also reminded that the company has successfully performed overhauls of many production facilities, among which is unit B2 at thermal power plant Nikola Tesla B, which has been completed two days ahead of schedule for the first time in company’s history. He added that currently there are 33,500 employees at the company, and about 2,000 of them have already applied for severance.
Earlier this month, Director of Strategy at EPS Aleksandar Jakovljevic said that the company will invest about 4.5 billion euros in Serbian energy system by 2025. According to him, coal-fired thermal power plants will remain main source of electricity, but their operation has to be harmonized with the EU environmental regulations. EPS has already invested some 200 million euros in this field, and will invest additional 600 million euros in coming years. He added that significant investments are needed for the modernization of hydropower plants in order to keep the current level of hydro production.
Jakovljevic added that there are also several projects in the distribution sector related to the security of supply, but also to increasing the efficiency of Serbian electricity distribution system. There is also much potential in the renewable energy sector and the state has a certain action plan regarding RES sector that will be implemented in the near future. However, he believes that RES production can not be an alternative to coal-fired TPPs, adding that several projects for the reduction of CO2 emissions from TPPs are planned.
