No Environmental Impact Assessment Required for the Obrenovac–New Belgrade District Heating Pipeline

An environmental impact assessment is not required for the Obrenovac–New Belgrade district heating pipeline project, according to a decision by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

It should be recalled that the construction of the Obrenovac–New Belgrade district heating pipeline has been announced for years. The contract for the project was signed in January 2020 between Belgrade District Heating Plants and the City of Belgrade on one side, and the contractor, Power Construction Corporation of China, on the other. The contract was subsequently amended in October 2023, including an extension of the project implementation deadline, and later by a second amendment. Serbia secured financing for the construction of the district heating pipeline from the Nikola Tesla Thermal Power Plant to New Belgrade through a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.

The plan is for Belgrade District Heating Plants to take over 600 MW of thermal energy from the Nikola Tesla Thermal Power Plant and deliver it to New Belgrade.

The contract itself also provides for the construction of a 30-kilometer route, or 60 kilometers of pipelines.

When signing the first contract amendment with the Chinese contractor in 2023, Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic stated that "in two years, Belgrade will finally get what has been awaited for more than 30 years."

We will no longer depend on others, but will have our own thermal energy, directly connected to the power plant in Obrenovac. Only in this way will we be able to heat more than half of New Belgrade - Sapic said at the time.

Meanwhile, in February this year, the Belgrade District Heating Plants public utility company announced a negotiated procurement procedure for FIDIC engineering services related to the construction of the Obrenovac–New Belgrade district heating pipeline, after the consortium that had previously been awarded the contract withdrew. This was one of the reasons for the slowdown of the project.

That the district heating pipeline would have an additional purpose became clear in the summer of 2024, when the Belgrade Secretariat for Urban Planning and Construction published an early public review of the Detailed Regulation Plan for the construction of a district heating pipeline and a power cable between the Ostruznica pumping station and the Surcinsko Polje heat source. The purpose of the Detailed Regulation Plan is to provide a district heating pipeline connecting the heating zones of the New Belgrade Heating Plant and the Surcinsko Polje Heat Source with the Nikola Tesla Combined Heat and Power Plant in Obrenovac. In practice, this means that the district heating pipeline from the Obrenovac thermal power plant, which has been planned for decades, is intended to deliver hot water to Surcin as well, not only to New Belgrade as originally planned.

Power Construction Corporation of China Limited Ogranak Beograd

JKP Beogradske Elektrane Beograd

PowerChina

TENT Obrenovac

Belgrade District Heating Plants Public Utility Company

Obrenovac–New Belgrade District Heating Pipeline

Obrenovac–New Belgrade District Heating Transmission Pipeline

EXPO 2027

Aleksandar Sapic