The Government of Serbia has made a decision on the formation of the Council for giving proposals and opinions regarding the operation of thermal power plants and replacement capacities from all energy sources by 2050.
Among other things, the Council will work on the analysis of possible measures and activities aimed at implementing decarbonization, analysis and revitalization of existing power plants, which should provide a sustainable way of electricity production.
The President of the Council will be the Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic, and the Deputy President will be the Minister of Environmental Protection, Irena Vujovic.
The members of the council will also be the Minister of Finance Sinisa Mali, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, SANU, the Ministry of Labor, but also representatives of the trade union of EPS workers, and the trade unions of Kostolac and Kolubara.
According to the decision, the Council will, within 15 days from the day of publishing the decision, send a request to the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue to conduct the procedure of electing two representatives of civil society organizations for members of the Council.
In 2020, power plants in Serbia achieved a total production of 35,540 gigawatt hours, of which coal-fired power plants produced 68.6 percent of electricity, according to the report on the work of the Energy Agency for 2020. In the second place, hydroelectric power plants are connected to the transmission system, whose share in production is 26.5 percent, while the share of thermal power plants is 0.5 percent. Wind farms produced 2.5 percent of the total electricity produced.
According to the report, Serbia is characterized by a high share of coal in the total primary energy, mostly low-calorie lignite, about 49 percent, which is predominantly used for electricity production.
There are seven thermal power plants in Serbia, and together with thermal-heating power plants, they participate with 57.4 percent in the capacities for electricity production. In May, it was announced that the Ministry of Mining and Energy had decided to suspend the construction of the Kolubara B coal-fired power plant, which had formally begun in the late 1980s.
The decision was welcomed by environmental organizations, but not by the leaders of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS), who claim that it threatens the stability of the country’s energy system.
Due to the announcement of the Ministry of Energy, a warning word was held for the miners of Kolubara and Kostolac and the employees of TENT for fear that they would lose their jobs due to the interruption of the operation of coal-fired thermal power plants. Mihajlovic then stated that the strike of the miners of Kolubara, which was held on May 24, cost Serbia half a million euros.
The Minister also said that no one is working on closing the power plant and that no one will lose their job, but that we must consider whether some new capacities will be built or not, Nova Ekonomija reports.
