The spatial planning ministry of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Republika Srpska entity has terminated the environmental permitting procedure for the proposed 700MW Ugljevik 3 lignite-fired power plant.
The decision means the project is "practically suspended until further notice," Redzib Skomorac, legal advisor to the Bosnian environmental organisation Centre for the Environment, told Argus. The halting of the permitting procedure comes shortly after a Bosnian district court annulled the planning ministry's decision to approve the plant's environmental permit following a lawsuit initiated by the Centre for the Environment, which highlighted "numerous procedural deficiencies" in the document.
The recent termination of the environmental procedure came at the request of developer Comsar Energy Republika Srpska. The project's suspension will last until the entity's supreme court delivers a decision on the ministry's request for a review of a previous court judgement to annul the plant's environmental impact study in December 2022. This process will be complete "three years after the case is initiated," Skomorac told Argus, giving a date of December 2025. The Centre for the Environment would expect "much greater scrutiny if the continuation of the permitting [procedure] occurs in the near future," Skomorac said.
"It is necessary to stop with the persistent approval of the project whose legality is as questionable as its economic justification," Skomorac said in a post on the Centre for the Environment's website. "The ministry's decision to stop the proceedings, at least temporarily, was a necessary decision," he added.
If completed, Ugljevik 3 would consist of two 350MW units, which would generate a combined 4.9 TWh/yr of power. But a timeframe for building works at the plant is far from clear, with Bosnia's recent draft National Energy and Climate Plan stating that the country has "no plan to increase the capacity of plants burning fossil fuels".
The spatial planning ministry of the Republika Srpska did not respond to an Argus request for comment on the suspension of Ugljevik 3 or the fate of other proposed lignite-fired plants, such as the 450MW unit 7 at Tuzla and the 300MW unit 8 at Kakanj.
Power generation in the Republika Srpska is dominated by state-owned utility ERS, which also owns the existing 300MW Ugljevik lignite-fired power plant through its subsidiary RiTE Ugljevik. ERS relies on lignite-fired plants for 56pc of its generation, while the final 44pc comes from hydropower plants. The region has very limited non-hydropower renewable capacity installed, though ambitious projects such as the 500MW Nevesinje solar farm have progressed recently.
