While the price of electricity obtained from solar panels in many countries of the world is the lowest and thus the most favorable for consumers, in Serbia this is not the case because it is significantly increased in relation to its real value due to the feed-in tariff.
According to a report presented by the International Energy Agency in October, solar technology is consistently cheaper in most countries than that of coal-fired or natural gas-fired power plants, so solar power plants currently offer electricity at the lowest prices ever. Accordingly, the International Energy Agency points out that solar energy will take precedence in the next 10 years when it comes to additional quantities of electricity and that it will meet as much as a third of those world needs.
According to the research of the International Energy Agency, the projected average growth rate of the share of solar plants in additional electricity production will be 13 percent per year.
Energy expert Goran Radosavljevic says for Danas that these are still estimates, but that they are completely realistic due to a number of factors when it comes to the advantages of producing electricity from solar panels in the next decade.
– Electricity obtained from solar panels is already cheaper in many countries than that obtained from other sources. There are several reasons for that. The first is that the technology in solar plants is cheaper than the one obtained in others, so it enables higher productivity and cheaper electricity prices. Also, countries around the world offer a number of benefits when it comes to the production of electricity from solar, which further lowers its cost. Also, producers of electricity from solar panels do not have to pay taxes, which, for example, are paid by production facilities that generate phosphorus through their activity. Accordingly, the statement that at this moment the production of electricity from solar panels is the most profitable and its price the lowest on the market is completely true – explains Radosavljevic.
However, this data means little to consumers in Serbia because at the moment the electricity they pay is even more expensive than the real one due to feed-in tariffs that guarantee purchase prices higher than market prices to producers of electricity from renewable sources, including solar panels.
This practically means that the Electric Power Industry of Serbia pays more expensive electricity to RES producers, in accordance with the decisions of the state, so that they can compensate for the spent funds invested in investments and develop business on the market.
Therefore, EPS pays more for electricity than the one obtained in its power plants, and that difference is ultimately paid by consumers because their bills for consumed electricity are increased by that amount.
Radosavljevic states that the market of electricity from renewable sources in Serbia is in its infancy, which is why incentive measures, ie feed-in tariffs, have been introduced.
– Accordingly, it is not possible, when it comes to electricity obtained from solar panels, to achieve the effect that already exists in some countries, and that is the cheapest cost price for consumers. Simply, the feed-in tariff, which increases the purchase price of the produced electricity, does not allow that. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to move from the feed-in tariff system to the classic market way, where the most favorable price is offered for the purchase of electricity from renewable sources, and that can be realized through the auction process – our interlocutor concludes.
