In 10 Years at the Most, 10 Hydro Power Plants Are Supposed to Be Built on the Ibar – Italians No Longer in the Game, EPS Takes Over the Investment

The Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure of Serbia has put the Draft Amendments to the Spatial Plan of the Special-Purpose Area of the System of Hydro Power Plants on the Ibar up for public inspection.

This document, which was prepared by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Planning of Serbia, in cooperation with the Institute for Water Management “Jaroslav Cerni”, plans the construction of 10 hydro power plants on the Ibar river – HPP Lakat, HPP Maglic, HPP Dobre Strane, HPP Bela Glava, HPP Gradina, HPP Cerje, HPP Glavica, HPP Usce, HPP Gokcanica and HPP Bojanici.

– Due to the new economic and energy relations, nearly the entire technical hydro energy potential of Serbia now belongs to the category of an economically usable potential… Among the most important planned systems is the cascade system on the Ibar river, with 10 run-of-river HPPs in the bed for a large amount of water, which don’t jeopardize the surroundings and are instead an integral part of that river valley – the document says.

Elektroprivreda Srbije has been designated as the carrier of the investment, which will fully finance the preparation of the technical documentation and the entire execution of the works, and the construction and the commissioning of the entire planned system of ten hydro power plants is planned within the estimated time horizon of the Spatial Plan of ten years.

The plan for the construction of 10 hydro power plants on the Ibar, between Kraljevo and Raska, dates back to 2010, when Elektroprivreda Srbije and the Italian company SECI Energia signed the agreement on the founding of the joint company Ibarske hidroelektrane, which was supposed to build the hydro power plants.

The value of the investment was estimated at the time at around EUR 285 million.

Two years later, the Spatial Plan of the Special-Purpose Area of the System of Hydro Power Plants on the Ibar was adopted, with a time frame of five years for the construction of hydro power plants.

The plan was to build hydro power plants with a total power of 103 megawatts, with an annual production of 420 million kilowatt-hours.

However, from then up till this year, the project stood still, and since last year, the joint Serbian-Italian company (ESP 49%, SECI Energia 51%) has been in the liquidation process, according to the data of the Serbian Business Registers Agency.

The new Spatial Plan changes some of the technical characteristics of the future hydro power plants regarding the length of the dams, so some will have (negligibly) longer dams, and some will have shorter ones. The biggest changes are planned for the HPP Maglic, whose new dam length is around 150 m, compared to the previously planned 123 m, as well as the HPP Bela Glava (130 m instead of 117 m), whereas, for the HPP Usce, according to the new plan, a shorter dam is planned (155 m instead of 231 m).

Other construction details and the energy characteristics of the future hydro power plants are not provided.

The project also envisages the moving of sections of the IB-grade state road no. 22 and the construction of an electrical energy network for connecting the HPPs to the system.

– What especially stands out as the priority in the realization of the system of hydro power plants, that is, the first phase in the implementation of the Plan by the end of 2028, is the moving of sections of the IB-grade state road no. 22, the construction of access roads, the construction of HPPs and the planned electrical energy network – the plan says.

Let us remind that, in March, Elektroprivreda Srbije published the tender for the preparation of the investment-technical documentation for the construction of hydro power plants on the Ibar, thereby practically reviving this decade-long project.

The tendering documentation called for the actualization and harmonization of the Spatial Plan of the Special-Purpose Area, considering that the Law on Planning and Construction and the accompanying regulations had been amended in the meantime.

It was also said that the construction would be financed with the proceeds from loans by international financial institutions.

B. P.

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

Institut za arhitekturu i urbanizam Srbije Beograd

Institut Jaroslav Černi a.d. Beograd

Ibarske hidroelektrane d.o.o. Kraljevo

Ministry of Construction Transport and Infrastructure

Elektroprivreda Srbije

EPS

Seci Energia

Institute for Architecture and Urban Planning of Serbia

Institute for Water Management Jaroslav Černi

Ibarske hidroelektrane doo

Ibar hydro power plants

10 HPPs on the Ibar

construction of a system of hydro power plants on the Ibar

HPP Lakat

HPP Maglič

HPP Dobre Strane

HPP Bela Glava

HPP Gradina

HPP Cerje

HPP Glavica

HPP Ušće

HPP Gokčanica

HPP Bojanići

hydro power plants on the Ibar

Spatial Plan of the Special Purpose Area of the System of Hydro Power Plants on the Ibar