Windpower co's in Serbia protest against planned subsidy cuts

The draft proposed by the energy ministry on Monday provides for a 3.2% cut in wind power FITs to 0.092 euro per kilowatt hour (KWh). It also foresses a 30% reduction in incentives for large solar parks and increased support for small hydropower plants.

“Serbia is today one of the few countries without wind farms and further discouraging investment in this sector is bad government policy,” SEWEA said in an emailed statement adding that Serbia will not be able to meet its 2020 target of ensuring 27% of the total energy consumption from renewable sources.

The proposed wind tariff is more than 45% lower than the 0.1382 euro per KWh for biomass producers, which the government favours, SEWEA added. The FITs will make wind farms in Serbia unprofitable and support the current coal-burning technologies, SEWEA noted.

The ministry will further abolish state guarantees for the purchase of energy from renewable energy sources and drastically cap the projected new wind capacity at 250 megawatts (MW), down from 450 MW, with the possibility for the construction of new wind farms as early as 2016, SEWEA added.

Serbian Wind Energy Association is a union of local and foreign developers interested to invest over 1 billion euro ($1.3 billion) over the next three to six years in Serbia, the association says on its website.

($=0.7756 euro)