Association of Energy Professionals of Serbia: Gas power plants potential temporary solution until 2050

Serbia can build a gas power plant, but that’s not a permanent, but temporary, solution, because it also emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and would have to close by 2050, said Zeljko Markovic, a member of the Association of Energy Professionals of Serbia (Savez energeticara Srbije).

The optimal energy mix of the sources of electrical energy should be determined by strategy. Serbia should develop renewable energy sources, nuclear energy and energy from green hydrogen. A part of the energy can be obtained by building gas power plants, but that is a temporary solution and they would have to be shut down by 2050, said Markovic.

He added that the volume of the production of electricity from a gas power plant should be defined by a serious study.

The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said that, the day before, he had talked to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, about the construction of a big gas power plant in Serbia, from which both countries could benefit.

Serbia has obliged by international acts and the Western Balkans Green Agenda to be carbon-neutral by 2050, without carbon dioxide emissions in its production of energy. Markovic said that gas power plants emit 50% less carbon dioxide than thermal power plants running on coal.

He pointed out that, in making the decision to build a gas power plant, it should be taken into account that Serbia imports gas and what to do if there’s not enough gas for some reason or if its price jumps. In Europe, as he said, gas power plants produce 20% of electrical energy and the most recent energy crisis, during which the prices of gas jumped, is a consequence of the operations of those power plants. Those power plants, as he said, also dictated the prices of gas and electricity during the recent energy crisis.

The prices of the electrical energy currently produced by wind farms and solar power plants is lower that the price of electricity obtained from a gas power plant.

– I’m not saying that gas power plants should not be built, but that one should be careful and define to what extent – said Markovic.

He explained that the average price of the construction of a gas cogeneration power plant, which produces both electrical and heating energy is around EUR 1,000 per kilowatt of installed power, which is twice as cheap as an investment in a thermal power plant.

The gas power plant in Pancevo, which, according to him, Naftna Industrija Srbije recently put into operation, for the sake of comparison, has 150 MW, and the installed power of the TPP Nikola Tesla B is 1,300 MW.

Savez energetičara Srbije Beograd

Ogranak EPS Termoelektrane Nikola Tesla- TENT d.o.o. Obrenovac

Savez energetičara Srbije

Association of Energy Professionals of Serbia

Thermal Power Plant Nikola Tesla B Obrenovac

Željko Marković

Aleksdar Vučić

Ilham Aliyev

construction of gas power plants

gas power plant in Pančevo