Investments of German power company RWE in Serbia depend on feasibility studies

- German power company RWE is going to decide whether and how much it will invest in construction of hydroelectric power plants in Serbia once the elaboration of the feasibility studies for the projects on the Danube, the Velika Morava and the Drina is finished - said the people from that company.

The spokesperson of RWE, Anett Urbaczka, said that the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with "Electric Power Company of Serbia" (EPS) had enabled commencement of elaboration of the studies that should determine which of the projects in three aforementioned locations were the most acceptable.

EPS and RWE signed the Memorandum of Understanding on November 16th in Berlin, which anticipated construction of hydroelectric power plants of total of 3,000 MW on the Danube near Đerdap, the Velika Morava and the Drina, on the territory of Republic of Srpska. Before that Memorandum was signed, the business circles in Germany and Serbia were informed that the value of those projects may reach 5-6 billion EUR.

When asked how big the investment framework of the projects in Serbia can be, the representative of RWE said that the decision on that would be made once it was decided how they would finally look like. Ms. Urbaczka said that, in the media, the usual price of 1 MW of installed power for hydro-power production was 1m EUR, but she added that that price might be much too high.

- Of course that we are not going to give any details now, but once the final decision on the investment is made, it is most likely that the volume of investment will amount to few hundred million euros - she pointed out.

The elaboration of the feasibility studies will last for few months, while implementation of the projects based on these studies would take several years.

The economic analysts estimate that Serbian Government primarily hopes that, after EPS and RWE signed the Memorandum and Serbia signed a similar document with the German Railways one year ago, the economic interests of Serbia and Germany became firmly connected on long-term basis, which also strengthened political relations. It is stated in the announcement by German Ministry of Economy that followed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding that German investors will give significant contribution to Serbian power economy in that way, as well as that they will affect the development of infrastructure and telecommunications.