December 19 (SeeNews) - Serbia's power monopoly Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) said on Wednesday it planned to invest some 5.2 billion euro ($7.5 billion) in ongoing and new projects over the next five years.
EPS will finance part of the projects with electricity sales or through loans, EPS's general manager, Vladimir Djordjevic, said in a statement, published on the company's website.
One of EPS's major projects is the construction of the Bistrica hydro power plant, for which some one billion euro is needed, Djordjevic said. Another 1.2 billion euro should go for environment protection projects.
Besides, EPS plans to develop several projects together with strategic partners. These projects include the construction of two thermal power plants with a total capacity of 1,400 megawatts, worth 1.5 billion euro.
Two other hydro power plants, with a total capacity of 250 megawatts and estimated to cost 350 million euro, will be built together with Bosnian Serb state-owned power utility Elektroprivreda RS.
EPS said it produced 39.44 billion kWh in 2006, some 3.0 billion kWh above plan and almost equal to the record-high output for the last 17 years achieved in 2005.
According to data from EPS's website, the combined installed capacity of Serbia's power plants in 2006 was 8,355 megawatts.
EPS is one of the state-owned monopolies Serbia will have to partly privatise in the next few years. It includes 11 mining, power production and distribution companies.
($ = 0.695 euro)