Serbia has the largest electricity market in the region of about 28 terawatt hours per year, and more is being done on its connection to the markets in the region and in Europe, it was announced today during fourth international conference on Regional Electricity Market.
About 37 percent of the total final consumption is in the free market, and beside these 10.7 terawatt hours of electricity, consumed in 2015 by customers who have purchased electricity in the free market, losses are being sold according to market conditions and are greater than five terawatt hours”, said a member of Energy Agency Council of Serbia Ljiljana Hadzibabic.
During the conference organized by EPS and Balkanmagazin under the patronage of the Ministry of Mining and Energy, she said it is expected that households and small customers enter the competitive market only when the price reaches economic price or the one in the free market.
“For now there are no conditions for that level of price, not only because the State protects these customers due to social peace but the State in general does not interfere in that part; certain things would have to be provided so that the market would be more lively and sufficient for supplying”, said Hadzibabic.
As of January 1, 2015 households and small consumers may choose suppliers in the free market, but no one wants to offer a price that is below the economic price.
In addition, as of January 1, 2013 the high voltage electricity market was opened, and as of January 1, 2014 the medium voltage electricity market as well.
She stated that there are many requests for issuing a supply license and the Agency has issued 59 supply licenses and 37 wholesale supply licenses. According to her, many of these 59 licenses are not active yet.
“From a total of 96 issued licenses only 45 appeared to be willing to work with electricity trade. In addition, 15 of these 45 are dealing with supplying end-customers, and the most dominant supplier is EPS”, said Hadzibabic.
State Secretary in the Ministry of Mining and Energy Mirjana Filipovic said that the legal framework provided possibility to develop the electricity market and to align it with mainstream European trends.
She said that restructuring processes is underway in large energy companies, such as EPS, Srbijagas and others.
Filipovic reminded that Serbian Power Exchange – SEEPEX started operating in February and it was established by the public company EMS with the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT and she also stated that now a lot of work is being done on regional connection.
The Executive Director for Electricity Trading in Electric Power Industry of Serbia Dragan Vlaisavljevic said that more energy from renewable sources should be used for heating and cooling. Speaking about new trends, Vlaisavljevic said that the EU is preparing a new market design and that everything will be directed towards the development of renewable energy sources.
He said that smart grids from the primary energy to the end customer are being introduced. According to him, the conventional energy industry is exposed to a great decrease of wholesale electricity prices, therefore it is only profitable to invest in renewable energy.
Technical Director at Serbian Power Exchange (SEEPEX) Dejan Stojcevski said that although it has been less than a year since the establishment of Power Exchange liquidity has been increasing with the arrival of new members. “We have 11 members, and are expecting three more soon”, said Stojcevski.
He pointed out that the aim of the power exchange is connection of electricity markets, but that a pre-condition is market opening.
Stojcevski pointed out that in all other national markets situation is similar and that large companies want to maintain a monopoly. Therefore, there is an idea of market regionalization and the ultimate goal is a single European electricity market.
“That is why we should first connect to neighboring electricity markets”, he added.
