Construction of the first wind parks in Serbia should begin until the end of the year- Serbian Wind Energy Association (SEWEA) stated. Goal is to enable production 10% of total energy needs during next couple of years.
“We are close to launching the first wind park in Serbia construction and if cooperation with Ministry of Energy continues like it was during last few months, the first barges with turbines will arrive in Pancevo port along Danube River soon”, Representative of SEWEA, Ana Brnabic, said on occasion of the World Wind Day i.e. 15 June.
As she added, SEWEA members want to construct wind parks with the capacity of 1.000 MW in Serbia during the next three to five years (projects with capacity of 700 MW are currently in progress) what would mean investment bigger than a billion.
Talking about economy significance of wind parks, she stated that SEWEA members have directly invested around 15 million EUR in Serbia so far and that their construction hasn’t started yet.
“Even 90% of this money finished in our economy within engagement of local firms on production of technical documentation for wind parks, transmission lines, roads, geotechnical research and elaborates, buyout of the country, licenses, administration tax, people employment, monitoring of birds and bats and making a Study of Environment Influence Estimation”, Brbabiceva said.
As she added “the biggest significance of wind parks is that even 70% of electricity is produced during winter months when Serbia needs energy the most and when import is the most expensive”.
She reminded that Serbia has significant potential in wind energy area which is the biggest in South Banat and East part of the country, but also in the bare tail of Europe like a country where no MW is produced from wind.
Brnabic said that Romania gets the most electricity from wind energy, then Bulgaria, Hungary and Croatia while there are projects for wind parks in Montenegro that launched the construction.
“State and ministry are in direct conversations with representatives of international financial institutions (EBRD, IFC and OPIC) , working on model of Contract for Electricity Buyout (PPA) and it is the best way to reach the contract that would provide financing of multimillion projects like wind parks”, Brnabic estimated.
According to EWEA estimations, electricity produced from wind covers around 7% of total European electricity consumption.
Source; Serbia Energy /Sewea
