In 2022, wind power plants (WPPs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina produced 392 GWh of electricity, which is 2% more than the previous year. The share of electricity generation from WPPs in the total generation (15 TWh) is still negligible and amounts to less than 3%.
The maximum monthly generation of WPPs in 2022 was recorded in March in the amount of 49.6 GWh and the minimum in May, 17.5 GWh. Regarding individual production, the largest WPP Mesihovina produced 155 GWh, WPP Podveležje 122 GWh and WPP Jelovača 115 GWh of electricity.
The capacity factor is the most often used indicator to present the performance of the WPP and represents the ratio of the actual and maximum possible generation. Modern wind turbines produce an average of 3 GWh of electricity per year for each MW of installed capacity.
According to realized production in 2022, the most efficient WPP in BIH was the WPP Jelovača with 3.200 working hours, i.e. a capacity factor of 36%, which shows that for 1 MW of installed power, it produced 3.2 GWh of electricity. WPP Podveležje had the lowest number of working hours (2.500) with a capacity factor of 29%.
According to WindEurope (www.windeurope.org), 19.1 GW of new WPPs were installed in the Europe in 2022, and the total wind installed capacity reached 255 GW.
WPPs in Europe produced 489 TWh in 2022, which is also the historically highest recorded production. Wind production was sufficient to met 17% of electricity demand. The average capacity factor of onshore WPPs was 24%, while the average power of new installed wind turbines was 4.1 MW. Germany is the country with the largest installed wind capacity in the Europe, 66.3 GW. No new WPP was built in the Western Balkans region in 2022. It is interesting that in the region of Southeast Europe, only Greece (230 MW) and Turkey (867 MW) built new wind capacities in 2022.
In the Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia), the total installed wind capacity reached 801 MW, whereby Albania is the only country in Southeast Europe without wind capacity in its production portfolio. Malta is the only EU country without wind power plants.
The last WPP in Bosnia and Herzegovina was installed in January 2021 (WPP Podveležje). The total installed capacity of wind power plants in Bosnia and Herzegovina has reached 134.6 MW. In the next decade more than 2 GW of new wind power plants are expected to be integrated into the BiH power system. The WPPs integration process is very slow due to complex and long lasting administrative procedures, limited access to financial resources, inflation, the global trend of slowing down and delays in the delivery of wind turbines.
