Montenegro faces up to 800 GWh power deficit in 2025 outage
Date: November 12th 2024
Author: Maja Žuvela
Category: En.vision
Topic:
Electricity
, Renewables
, Coal
, Energy policy
, Economy
Montenegro risks having a power deficit of 600-800 GWh during the planned eight-month outage of its 225 MW Pljevlja coal-fired plant in 2025, the country’s energy ministry said on Tuesday.
As a result, it has asked subsidised green power producers to sell their output during the outage to state-owned utility EPCG at lower prices to help protect against volatility, the ministry said. It added that this could also help keep retail power prices stable.The subsidised producers, which have combined annual output of around 450 GWh, have been asked to submit the lowest price at which they are willing to sell to EPCG by 25 November.
Currently, EPCG and consumers, through their electricity bills, pay these producers EUR 120/MWh under the country’s 12-year subsidy scheme.
EPCG has so far bought 50 GWh on the market at a price of EUR 100/MWh for delivery during the Pljevlja outage, said the ministry.
Imports
Any deficit would also be likely to boost flows into the country, which mainly imports from neighbours Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, as well as from Italy, with which it is linked via an undersea interconnector.Renewables generators that choose to sell power to EPCG at favourable prices will be offered a one-year extension to the ongoing feed-in-tariff scheme.
In 2023 this scheme cost Montenegro EUR 48m for just over 400 GWh of electricity produced, the ministry said.
Over the past two years, green power producers in the Western Balkans have been increasingly terminating their contracts with governments to sell electricity on the open market, due to the higher prices on offer there.
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