Fairytale 1
Fairytale:
Fact:
Electricity prices can always be Electricity prices are going up,
cheap in Serbia.
whether EPS builds new power
plants or not – Whether the
power in 2017 is made by EPS
or imported, it will be based on
clean coal plants, and the price
of power from these plants is
7.5 € cents or more not
including transmission.
Fairytale 1
Fairytale:
Electricity prices can always be cheap in Serbia.
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Fairytale 2
Fairytale:
Wind energy is expensive.
Fact:
Implementing the government’s current
450 MW quota of wind power would
add between 2.0% and 2.5% to
electricity bills, very gradually from
2015 to 2017, and by 2017 the price of
electricity will be much higher anyway
because of the Europe-wide shutdown
of cheap polluting coal plants and their
replacement with modern clean coal
plants. The ‘extra’ cost of wind could
easily be very close to zero on
consumer electricity prices.
Fairytale 3
Fairytale:
Fact:
Other renewable energy
Solar costs 142% more than
sources are cheaper than wind. wind, biomass costs between
20% and 46% more than wind.
Fairytale 4
Fairytale:
Serbia has enormous biomass
potential, at low cost.
Fact:
Installing enough biomass to generate the
same power as envisioned 450 MW of wind
would cost the country €50 million per year
more than the cost of the same energy
provided by wind.
As for potential: “Our potentials for RES
production are often subject of
fairytales. The most common
misconception is about biomass. Serbia
actually does not have biomass, but only
the potential for its production, but that
would require huge infrastructural
projects”, former CEO of EPS quoted in the
weekly magazine NIN.
Fairytale 5
Fairytale:
Serbia doesn’t really need this
renewable energy, so for Serbia
it is just paying extra for what it
already has.
Fact:
Serbia imported 1,800 GWh last year
from other countries. The only
people making money from this are
energy traders. The Serbian
government subsidizes to EPS the
cost of these incredibly high-priced
imports so that EPS does not need
to raise electricity prices to the
consumers. But wind energy would
be cheaper than the imports.
Fairytale 6
Fairytale:
Serbia can build renewable
power but export the power to
EU countries, saving the
Serbian consumer the cost of
buying it.
Fact:
Serbia is not allowed to export
renewable power to EU until it has
already achieved its own 2020 target
approved by the EU, which will not
happen before 2020 unless the
current government massively
expands the 450 MW cap on wind.
Until the cap is expanded, and all
plants under the new higher cap are
built, it is illegal under EU law for
Serbia to export renewable power.
Fairytale 7
Fairytale:
The Serbian government
passed a renewable-friendly
law in 2011, and Serbia is now
just waiting for wind farms to
be built, but foreign investors
have not responded.
Fact:
The Law required the government to establish a
new feed in tariff (FIT), and a contract form
between EPS and renewable producers
according to which they could sell their power at
the FIT price to EPS. The deadline for that in the
Law was December 2011. Almost a year later,
neither has been done. IF the Serbian
government passed a decree with an economic
feed-in tariff, and a real contract with EPS, the
full 450 MW of the current government cap
would commence construction in 2013, with a
total foreign direct investment of €700 million.
CWS project would commence construction (if
the government acted) in September 2013, with
a total investment of €300 million.
Fairytale 8
Fairytale:
This doesn’t really matter, the
investors can wait, we are poor,
and the EU can’t make us do
anything.
Fact:
Serbia has a treaty obligation as
member of the European Energy
Community to meet it’s 2020
renewable targets. A flagrant
violation of these obligations, as
is happening now, can only delay
Serbia’s EU path.