When last week the public was presented with the possibility that citizens in the future not only have to buy electricity from Elektroprivreda Srbije, but also sell it to this public company, especially now that electricity is imported because there is not enough, most of those who heat TA furnaces or boilers electricity, they told the editorial office to ask how they are becoming a consumer – both a buyer and a producer of electricity. And that it is not about the construction of wind farms or “plantations” of solar panels.
And the most important thing is how much it would cost them if they would unite themselves or with their neighbors to provide themselves with heating in this way. This interests them all the more if it is known that the price of electricity is rising every day, so some have seen earnings in this. Only before that, they have to install solar panels on the roofs of their houses and buildings.
Is it that easy to install, produce and sell electricity to a third party? How much would this investment cost a household? Zeljko Markovic, M.Sc., senior advisor at Diloit and one of the former directors in EPS, says for “Politika” that the value of the investment depends on the power of the power plant with solar panels and usually ranges around one euro per watt of installed power. For most households, a power plant with a power of three to five kilowatts is enough, which would cost them from 3,000 to 5,000 euros.
Asked whether this system can work only if all tenants of the building give their consent and install solar panels on the roofs, or it is not a condition, he answered that it depends on the agreement within the housing community.
– If the tenants agree that those who are interested will invest, they will acquire the status of buyers of producers, while those who have not invested do not acquire that status. For households, which have an incentive scheme called net metering, the price of taken and delivered electricity is the same, while for the economy, which is on commercial supply and uses net billing, EPS offers to pay for delivered electricity in the amount of 80 percent of prices of taken over electricity – explains Markovic.
Producers are not obliged to sell the produced green electricity only to EPS.
– Any supplier on the market with whom a contract is concluded, can perform the supply and purchase of electricity. It’s all a matter of contract. Solar photovoltaic power plants produce electricity in winter as well, but to a lesser extent. The advantages of the status of the buyer of producers, for households, are precisely that the surplus energy produced in the summer is recorded as a loan, and then it can be used in the winter, during the heating season. In this way, the network becomes a virtual battery for the customer, and that is the main advantage of this method of calculation (net metering) – he emphasizes.
He adds that the citizens of Serbia and the economy have been given the opportunity to become buyers of electricity producers. This status allows them to produce electricity for their own consumption, but also to store the surplus produced that they do not consume immediately in the electric power system and withdraw it when their consumption is higher than production. Today, when electricity prices are many times higher than they were a year ago, cheaper energy is primary for everyone, Politika writes.
