The director of the Secretariat of the Energy Community (EC), Janez Kopac, said that the loans taken by Srbijagas for investments could not be a justification for postponing the separation of activities in that company and for expensive gas.
In an interview with the Beta agency, he said that he discussed the problem last week in Belgrade with the Minister of Mining and Energy of Serbia, Zorana Mihajlovic, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and that “the President understands the situation.”
“I expect that this problem will be solved this year because the loans for investments that Srbijagas is now repaying cannot be an excuse to break the law and reap monopoly profits because consumers pay much more for gas than they should, since competition is not allowed,” he said.
He added that the EC Council of Ministers will discuss measures against Serbia in November this year, but that he expects that the problem of Srbijagas will be solved by then.
Asked whether Serbia will have to close all thermal power plants by 2050 due to the Sofia Declaration, which stipulates that the countries of the Western Balkans work together with the EU to accelerate the decarbonisation of the energy sector and make Europe climate-neutral by 2050, Kopac said the document implies complete decarbonisation “which in practice would mean that there are no more coal-fired power plants”.
According to him, Serbia could start paying the tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to the combustion of coal in thermal power plants in two or three years.
“There is no binding date for Serbia to pay the CO2 tax because it is not yet part of EC law, but since the EU is introducing a ‘carbon border adjustment mechanism’ (a type of carbon tax) that will have an impact on Serbia, I expect it to payment for CO2 emissions will be introduced in two or three years,” Kopac said.
The desulphurization process that is being introduced at the “Nikola Tesla” Thermal Power Plant will, as he assessed, reduce pollution and “this device is a solution for excessive emissions and will reduce the emission of harmful gases below the allowed limits if there are no omissions in the installations.”
According to him, decarbonisation means the cessation of the use of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas.
On the other hand, as he said, it means mass construction of wind farms and plants for the use of solar energy, in the first place on the roofs, while gas and oil will be partially compensated by hydrogen, synthetic gases and biogas.
“It is still too early to talk about a concrete plan for decarbonisation in Serbia, which needs to be prepared,” Kopac said, Beta reports.
