During the first half of August, when the ambient temperature in shade was reaching 40 degrees Celsius, the available capacities of EPS in the thermal sector were working at full power, and they made possible to provide the sufficient amounts of electricity for increased consumption of end consumers in Serbia, as well as for the sales of surplus on the free market. At the same time, overhauls were done in OPMs and TPPs in accordance with the plans, and it was responded to the extreme heat by additional requirements for the consistent implementation of measures for the security and safety at work, appropriate for the severe weather conditions. When the temperature reaches 40 degrees in shade, usually there isn’t a spot within OMPs where the temperature doesn’t exceed 50 degrees. The situation wasn’t any better in the TPPs, around boilers and turbines in operation. Even under conditions like these, the workers of OPMs and TPPs managed, as it was concluded at the meeting in the EPS Department for electricity production on August 15th (chaired by Zoran Božić, the director of the Department), to produce about 3 % more coal than planned during the 14 days of this hottest month, i.e. 18 % more electricity than expected.
Talking about a significant electricity production increase, Ms. Jelena Cvetković, the manager of the Department for planning, analysis and improvement of energy production in the Headquarters of EPS, said that the picture of excellent results can be understand better if the achieved results are compared with the results of the same period last year. She said that, for the 14 days of August this year, the coal-fired TPPs produced 36.7 % or 300 million kWh more than in the same period last year. The total electricity production was higher than planned by 11.2 % or 135 million kWh, and almost by 21 % higher than in the same14 days-period of 2012, whereby the daily production was three times higher than 100 million kWh, although in the first half of July this year, the daily consumption of the full-supply consumers didn’t exceed 87 million kWh.
August hot wave had a negative impact on a total electricity production result, in spite of the great work done by the coal-fired TPPs, because the inflows of the Danube and of the Drina basin were significantly reduced, which disabled run-of–river HPPs to continue this year’s trend of high production, causing them to fall short the plan by 12.5 % during the 14 day period of this month.
In OPMs, in the both mining basins, the overburden production was by 4 % higher than planned, while the coal production was exceeded in “Kolubara” by 3 %, and in “Kostolac” the production was shorter by 10 %, which was in accordance with the needs of TPPs.
If we judged by the detailed exposures of the representatives of the companies concerning coal and electricity production at this meeting, it could be concluded that the overhauls in TPPs were at maximum level under the August sun, and everything was done according to the schedule. In HPP “Đerdap 1“, the fourth revitalized aggregate was tested, so it could be connected to the network during the last week of August. In HPP “Bajina Bašta“, a trial opetration of the fourth, also revitalized, aggregate is under way. All the other works were regular repairs and maintenance works, although some of them were more complex than the others, due to ealier postponed interventions. The river Drina was at the biological minimum.
In TPP “Nikola Tesla“, beside the usual equipment failure due to malfunctions, there were some problems because of the high water temperature of the river Sava. During the realization of overhauls in all the companies, major impediments are still caused by the difficulties with public procurements. Regarding this fact, it is suggested, among other things, to speed up the obtaining of the consent for the Plan Rebalance for this year in the competent Ministry, which was adopted by the Management Board of EPS. On this fact, as it was told, depends whether the public procurements that shall be completed in 2014, will be launched this year on time.
At the meeting, the measurements and evaluation of other systemic and other services were also discussed, and they must be defined by financial means, in accordance with the market conditions. It was said to be related to the services of secondary regulation for the needs of power industry system PES, but also to the requirements outside of PES, when the production is reduced due to rafting, swimming, bridge or road recovery.
Source ; Serbia Energy/ EPS Kwh