Share of renewables in energy mix to grow to 27 percent by 2020

Serbia expects to pay 700 million euros ($916 million) by 2020 in incentives for electricity made from renewable sources, Bloomberg news agency cited the Serbian energy minister as saying.

The estimate is based on revised feed-in tariffs, incentives to purchase electricity from renewables at higher rates, which took effect earlier this month in the Balkan country, Energy Minister Zorana Mihajlovic told a business forum in Belgrade today.

“It’s a considerable burden for Serbia, but we have to,” Mihajlovic said, adding that under the agreement with the Vienna-based Energy Community, Serbia is obliged to increase the share of renewables in its energy mix to 27 percent by the end of the decade from 21.2 percent.

Serbia has 19 megawatts in facilities eligible for the feed-in tariffs and expects 1,092 megawatts of additional capacity in seven years through the incentives for energy investors, Deputy Energy Minister Dejan Trifunovic said February 6th.

Serbia made hydro plants of up to 30 megawatts eligible for the support, compared with 10 megawatts previously, and increased the tariff by about a third to between 7.4 euro cents and 13.7 euro cents per kilowatt hour.