Building Energy to start the construction of its first biomass power plant in Serbia

Building Energy, multinational company operating as Global Integrated IPP in the Renewable Energy Industry, and the City of Krusevac have announced the construction of a biomass power plant in Krusevac, in Central Serbia.

The plant, the first one in the Country combining electric and thermal energy, will have an installed capacity of respectively 4.8MWe and 20MWt and will generate38.4GWh of electric power and 86GWh of thermal power per year.

The development of the project, worth €27 million (US$29 million), starts from a memorandum of understanding signed between Building Energy and the City of Krusevac, which provides for a close collaboration for the creation of an electricity generation pole from renewable sources.

The plant will be fuelled by woodchips coming from the cleaning of Serbian woods. The sale of thermalenergy, resulting from a ten-year agreement between Building Energy and the Krusevac thermal power plant, will largely contribute to satisfy the thermal needs of the city, which has about 110,000 inhabitants. The sale of electric power, instead, will be regulated by a contract with the national utility operator EPS, according to the Serbian feed-in-tariff rules.

The end of construction works and the beginning of electrical and thermal power production is expected from the winter of 2017/2018.

Paolo Rossi, Managing Director diBuilding Energy Eastern Europe, stated:

“We are happy to develop, with the support of the City of Krusevac, the Country’s biggest plant combining electrical and thermal power in the renewables sector. We believe that this project can contribute to help the Balkan Countries to fully exploit the potential and the resources the territory is rich in. The high availability of woodchip biomass in Serbia, together with our know-how and experience in the use of diversified technology will allow to begin a modernization process, by substituting the current thermal power plants, fuelled by fossil fuel, contributing to align the Country to the European standard of CO2 emissions”.

Building Energy has been present in the Balkans market since 2014 with its offices in Belgrade, from which it manages and coordinates the development of its projects in Serbia, Croatia, Republika Srpska, Romania, Montenegro, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Armenia.