Although they assured us that the situation with electricity and EPS is completely under control, the reality is that we continue to import electricity and it seems that this trend will continue until the end of winter, and according to experts, next winter will be even worse.
The Ministry of Mining and Energy announced that the current level of coal supply does not enable the engagement of all thermoblocks, and according to their announcements, it will be necessary to import additional electricity in the next period as well. Although the chaos in EPS has been going on for three months, a solution is not in sight, and experts warn that this will be a big blow to Serbia’s budget.
The president of the line committee for economy and finance of the Party of Freedom and Justice of the SAA (SAA), Dusan Nikezic, told Nova.rs that Serbia loses about five million euros a day due to the import of electricity.
“We have repeatedly said that what is happening in EPS is not the result of an isolated incident, a ‘perfect storm’, as Aleksandar Vucic puts it, but the result of many years of unprofessional management and ruthless sucking of money for party companies.” That is why EPS is an ongoing disaster, and the entire energy sector is facing a production and financial collapse, “said Nikezic and pointed out:
“TENT is still working with reduced capacity because there is not enough coal in Kolubara, some days with only 35 percent. That is why EPS continues to import huge amounts of electricity, at a daily level of around 1,000 MW or 20 percent of daily needs, and since the price is still at an all-time high, which means that Serbia loses about 5 million euros a day due to electricity imports, “Nikezic said.Â
He underlines that EPS has already spent hundreds of millions of euros in bank loans and has started to seriously delay settling its obligations to suppliers, so now the state will have to intervene financially.
“EPS’s problems in 2022 will be even bigger, because it will not be able to finance the necessary repairs, maintenance and investments, on which EPS spends hundreds of millions of euros a year.” “Since these investments are the biggest driver of economic activity in Serbia, consequently the growth of the economy will be slowed down this year,” said our interlocutor.
Nikezic says that EPS will welcome next winter in an even worse condition than now, and that we will be afraid of electricity restrictions.
“Therefore, we insist on immediately declaring a state of emergency in the energy sector and urgently introducing a professional crisis management in EPS, in order to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply and investments in quality coal reserves, filters to reduce pollution and build renewable energy sources,” he concluded is our interlocutor.
Energy expert Miodrag Kapor told Nova.rs that it is good that Serbia has the opportunity to import electricity at all, but that the long-term consequences in EPS cannot be good.
“It is good that we have the opportunity to import electricity in such circumstances, and that was resolved by the agreements we signed earlier. We have some contractual obligations because we are a member of the Secretariat for the Energy Community. The fact is that we respect some contractual provisions, and others do not “, says the expert.
Kapor underlined that there are indisputably problems in the energy sector that have led to the import of electricity.
“There are structural problems in EPS, little by little a block falls out, so we need to import energy. You know what the price of energy is, because of inflation, everything started to grow. “Such a policy will indisputably affect the budget of Serbia, and we should expect borrowing in the coming period,” our interlocutor concluded, Nova writes.
