After a series of incidents occurring since mid-December, Acting Director of Serbian state-owned power utility EPS Milorad Grcic has resigned.
In his resignation letter, Grcic accused Minister of Mining and Energy Zorana Mihajlovic for the catastrophic situation in EPS and Serbian energy sector. According to President Aleksandar Vucic, new Acting Director will be appointed within two days. The media speculate that Miroslav Tomasevic could be names as Grcic’s successor.
In mid-December all six units of TPP Nikola Tesla (TENT A) and two units of TENT B were shut down for several days due to the issues with coal supply. Namely, low quality coal, mixed with mud due to the season’s first snowfall, caused the forced shutdown of the units. In the following days EPS was forced to import about a quarter of the national consumption at extremely high prices. Following the incident, President Vucic said that Grcic should hand in his resignation.
In late December, two units of TPP Nikola Tesla B were temporarily out of operation, following two minor incidents. Namely, unit B1 was shut down due to a fire incident, while a day after, unit B2 was also taken offline after the explosion at the coal pulverizer.
Finally, earlier this week, a fire broke out in the Kolubara coal mining basin, but it was promptly extinguished, with no casualties. The incident took place at the Tamnava-Zapadno Polje open pit, when a large excavator used to deposit mine tailings caught fire. The fire was extinguished in four hours.
