A Step Away to Construction of 3rd Section of Trans-Balkans Energy Corridor – Bajina Basta-Obrenovac Power Line Project Undergoing Environmental Impact Assessment

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has notified the public of the submitted request for giving approval to the study of the environmental impact of the project of the construction of the Bajina Basta-Obrenovac power line.

The carrier of the project is EPS, which also filed the request.

The study can be viewed until March 9, and the public discussion and presentation of the study, initially scheduled for February 4, will be repeated at a different date, March 16, due to, as said, procedural mistakes.

Let us remind that the tender for the construction of the Bajina Basta-Obrenovac double power line, 109 km long, was announced for March 31.

The job is worth EUR 59 million, without the VAT, and, aside from the construction of a new two-system 400-kV power line, it entails the raising of the voltage level of the Bajina Basta substation from 220 to 400 kV, as well as the installation of high-voltage equipment in two power line fields at the existing 400-kV switchgear facility.

The Bajina Basta-Obrenovac double power line will be the third section of the Trans-Balkans Energy Corridor, a regional project of the construction of a system for the transfer of electrical energy at a voltage of 400 kV, which will connect East and West Europe.

The construction will be financed from a KfW loan of EUR 40 million and an investment grant of the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) of EUR 12.8 million, and the remaining amount of EUR 6.15 million is secured from the technical aid of the WBIF and the funds of EMS.

The agreement of the financing of the third section was signed in February by the minister of European integration, Jadranka Joksimovic, the director of EMS, Jelena Matejic, and the director of the Serbian office of the German KfW bank, Rudiger Hartmann.

So far, the section from Pancevo to the Romanian city of Resita has been completed, and the construction of the second section, from Kragujevac to Kraljevo, is in progress.

After the third section, what remains to be done is to build the section from Bajina Basta to the borders with Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.