EPS plans to invest 1.2 billion EUR in environmental projects - Green Book presented

- Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS) plans to invest 1.2 billion EUR in environmental projects prior to year 2015 - the Director General of that public company, Dragomir Marković, announced today (June 15, 2009).

He said at the presentation of EPS' Green Book in Belgrade that the funds for those projects would be provided from the company's incomes, loans, strategic partners and EU funds.

- Development projects of EPS prior to 2015 are worth over 9 billion EUR, 1.2 billion EUR of which will be invested in environment protection - said Marković.

As he specified, the Green Book contains EPS' plans for environment protection improvement projects, and that document should help in attracting donors and investors for their realization.

The Minister of Environment of Serbia, Oliver Dulić, said that the energy sector represented 70% of all polluters in Serbia and that, by publishing of the Green Book, one large system admitted, for the first time, its role in pollution of environment, but it had also presented the plan for resolving all the problems that it had caused.

The Minister of Energy of Serbia, Petar Škundrić, said that the aim of capital overhaul of existing capacities was to ensure environment-friendly production of electric energy.

Special contribution to that, as he pointed out, is achieved through reconstruction of hydroelectric capacities, such as "Đerdap 1", "Bajina Bašta", "Zvornik", as well as through initiation of the investment cycle for construction of small and mid-sized hydroelectric power plants and use of renewable energy sources.

- The Ministry of Energy will do its best to turn public utility waste into pure energy. It is not enough that we only clean Serbia from that waste, but we also need to produce necessary quantity of pure energy - said Škundrić.

The Minister of Energy announced that the rule books governing stimuli for production of electric energy from renewable sources would be passed prior to July 1st.

As it was explained at the presentation of the Green Book, EPS is the first electric power company in the countries that have signed the contract on Southeast Europe Energy Community to publish the document about the needs and obligations related to environment protection.