Launching of Block B3 in Kostolac Might Happen as Soon as This Week

This is an important year for the electrical energy system of Serbia. After nearly four decades, a new thermal power plant – Block B3 in Kostolac – will start working, increasing the production of electricity in EPS by 7%. Even more importantly – TENT A is finally getting an ecological facility for the desulfuring of smoke gases.

The new thermal power plant Block B3 in Kostolac has a power of 350 megawatts. It will be supplied with coal from the Drmno mine. Its construction was accompanied by occasional justified and unjustified halts. However, the most important thing is that Block 3 is now in the final phase, that is, the testing of all parts of the system.

– Nearly all the permits have been obtained and I believe that, this week, we will be able to launch that Block and synchronize that energy part of the Block with the grid so as to do further testing of all the parameters of the Block and create the conditions for a next step, which would entail test operations – says Dusan Zivkovic, the acting CEO of EPS.

The competent minister pointed out that the thermal power plant had been built in line with the most modern ecological standards.

– For us, it primarily entails additional base energy which is important to us, regardless of all the development of green energy. To us, the base energy is still crucial and that facility is worth EUR 618 million and will be completed in the next months – said the minister of mining and energy of Serbia, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic.

Desulfuring facility at TENT as well from April

The advantage of the Kostolac thermal power plants is that they’ve had a desulfuring facility for three years now. That ecological facility is crucial to the operations of the thermal power plants, because it reduces the emissions of harmful gases, and the Obrenovac thermal power plants will have it too. Next year, it will be completed at TENT B, and from April this year, a desulfuring facility worth EUR 220 million will start working at TENT A.

“At the thermal power plant TENT A, the testing has already begun and the first plaster was already produced from waste last week, where we showed that the project is on a good way toward being completed within the set deadline, which is the end of March. With the completion of this project, we will reduce smoke gases, that is, their emission, as many as 10 times,” the minister said.

Energy export Zeljko Petrovic notes that it is part of the EU regulations, which started with the Large Combustion Plant Directive in 2001 and was replaced in 2015 with the Industrial Emissions Directive.

– In line with those legal regulations, the facilities for which it is not cost-effective to do the desulfuring were given a deadline to end operations or told to stop working, which has happened to a large number of them. With the completion of these projects, we will harmonize with those directives on emissions – Petrovic added.

Those projects are important, they contribute to electrical energy stability, because, by burning coal, thermal power plants still secure nearly 70% of the electricity.

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

Elektroprivreda Srbije

EPS

TPP B3 Kostolac

TENT A

Drmno mine

Dušan Živković

Dubravka Đedović Handanović

Željko Petrović

new thermal energy block

smoke gas desulfuring