Dejan Divac, Director of Jaroslav Cerni Water Institute – It Is Essential to Form Accumulations, Hydro Power is Cleanest

We have witnessed great droughts this summer, and the water levels of the Danube are at their lowest in the past 10 years. The oscillations in water levels influence the production of energy, water supply and dam safety. The essence in water management is to form accumulations where water can be stored when there’s enough of it.

– In this period of the year, the water level of the Danube is usually low, but we are truly witnessing some historic minimums recorded these days. In the first half of August, it has been at an all-time low, that is, there has never been a time when less water flowed down the Danube in the Belgrade zone and when less water arrived to the Djerdap accumulation – pointed out professor Dejan Divac, the general manager of the Jaroslav Cerni Water Institute.

Divac says that the construction of tall dams could form accumulation spaces where water will be stored, thereby preventing the damage. On the other hand, storing water this way enables it to be used in periods of drought, when it is necessary for the vegetation. Serbia has to build more accumulations on time, where it will considerably reduce the risk of floods and prevent the unfavorable consequences of drought. For decades now, serious projects to that end have been prepared, and the most significant example of one such project is the Djerdap accumulation, which is primarily a hydropower facility. At Djerdap, there are safety management systems, where various metering instruments register various phenomena and problems which can be prevented.

– It is important to point out that hydropower is the cleanest form of energy and that it has advantage over other manners of production, because it is above all manageable. That means that the production of water energy can be managed, that it can be stored as potential energy, which is then turned into kinetic and then electrical energy. Power generation from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy are on the rise, but the problem is that they are not manageable and we can’t store that energy. Hydropower can be stored and let onto the turbines in a controlled way and it can be produced when we need it – says professor Divac.

Since its founding in 1947, the Jaroslav Cerni Water Institute has been involved and successfully implemented large and complex projects in Serbia and the neighborhood, but also in numerous states worldwide, which has earned it an international reputation.

– The institute has taken part in the construction of dams in the region. It has mostly been active in former Yugoslav states. We have important facilities in Republika Srpska, such as the Grancarevo dam above Trebinje, which was built over 50 years ago as the backbone of the hydropower system on the Trebisnjica river. We have a storage facility of 1.3 billion cubic meters of water and you can imagine what would happen to Trebinje if that dam failed – Divac said.

In that sense, he emphasized, the institute also deals with a system of safety management on those facilities, and after problems were detected at the Grancarevo dam, the project of repair of the right side was prepared. This enabled the decision-makers to start the repair and have the structure fortified in order to prevent all the potential problems there.

Institut za vodoprivredu Jaroslav Černi DOO

Dejan Divac

Danube

Đerdap

Grančarevo dam

Trebišnjica

drought

Danube water levels

water level oscillations

waster management

forming of accumulations

accumulations

tall dams

hydropower

kinetic energy

electrical energy

power generation from renewable energy sources