Electricity market to start in 2014 – EMS plans to finish substations Beograd 20 and Vranje 4 and develop Trans-Balkan corridor

In March next year, Elektromreza Srbije (EMS) will set up the electricity market which will become fully operational in Q4 2014.

- Majority of work has been completed and the market is ready to start functioning next year. The partner in setting up the electricity market will be the French Epex spot. We expect that the first clients will be Montenegro, Macedonia and the Republic of Srpska – Nikola Petrovic, the General Manager at EMS, has said today.

Petrovic said that by setting up the market, Serbia will become the energy knot and added that it was planned that the Serbian market should connect to Hungary.

During the past three years, according to him, EMS generated almost nine billion dinars for the budget of Serbia which points out that a public company in Serbia can operate successfully without losses.

- EMS recorded extremely good business results since, more than a year ago, new management was appointed. In the first half of the year, the company generated gross business result of RSD 425 million which is 320 % more compared to the same period in 2012.

Petrovic mentioned this year losses in electricity transfer have decreased from 2,68 to 2,53%, which is at the level of the European networks.

(Photo: ems.rs)

Capital projects in 2014

As director of EMS says for eKapija, in 2014, implementation of capital investment projects such as transfer station Beograd 20 and Vranje 4 is planned as well as the project of trans Balkan corridor for electricity transfer which is electrical and energy equivalent to the South Stream.

- I expect complete end of transfer station Beograd 20 in 2015. The access long distance pipeline of 400 KV between Pancevo and Lestani should be cut and to construct a part to Mirijevo. The only problem with the land expropriation refers to 1-2 pillars out of the existing 50. We expect this to be solved and to start the construction of the long distance pipeline in the spring. Two long distance pipelines of 110 KV and a transfer station have their direction so that they will be ready by the end of next year - Petrovic says for our portal.

When the transfer station in Mirijevo becomes operational, stabile electricity charging will be provided for households in the north, northeast and central part of Belgrade, i.e. some 300.000 citizens. Apart from that, Beograd 20 should generate annual savings of million euros for the electrical-energy system of Serbia since electricity will be distributed with decreased losses.

Next year, EMS is planning development of trans Balkan corridor through our country.

- This means that much more energy will run through Serbia. Now, the underwater cable between Montenegro and Italy is under construction and a large energy migration is expected from the north of Europe. We should make a bit stronger network on this move – next year a network between Romania to Belgrade is to be installed and after that it should continue from Obrenovac to Bajina Basta to Pljevlje with one crossing of the line form the Republic of Srpska.

As our collocutor says, EMS is expecting to finish the construction of the transformer station Vranje 4.

-Tender for the construction of the access long distance pipeline of 400 KV was completed. Two companies, Energomontaza and Energoprojekt competed for this but it has not been decided yet who won the competition.

Access long distance pipeline for wind parks

Since in July a decision was made where EMS will be responsible for the construction of the access long distance pipelines for wind parks and since the investors did not agree upon that, we asked the first man of EMS how this situation was solved.

- It was very complicated and this kind of situation is not convenient for investors. The new Law on energy manages that problem i.e. it will be clear who is responsible for this long distance pipeline.

Sentence for cable stealing from 5 to 10 years

In July, Elektromreza Srbije submitted a proposal for amendment to the criminal law so that thefts and deliberate damages on energy facilities which are becoming more common would be treated and prosecuted.

- Stealing of electrical and energy equipment which was a common thing during the previous years will be sanctioned more severely in the future because the law which was adopted treats it as a criminal action of causing general danger. The sentence is predicted from 5 to 10 years of prison on the value of the stolen equipment.

S.O.