At the end of March, the Ministry of Environmental Protection adopted a decision on rejecting the request for approval of the environmental impact assessment study of the project for extending the operational life and increasing the power output of units A1 and A2 at coal-fired thermal power plant Nikola Tesla A (TENT A).
The decision states that the request submitted by state-owned power utility EPS in March 2020 is incomplete, and additional documentation was requested within 30 days.
However, in May, EPS informed the Ministry that due to the difficulties that occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not able to supplement the request and that it will do so as soon as the conditions are met.
After two years, EPS has not yet submitted the update, and the Ministry has again requested an amendment, which was not submitted again, so a decision has been made to completely reject the request.
EPS has been planning to increase the output of the two oldest units in the largest Serbian thermal power plant for a long time. In March 2019, a tender was announced for the reconstruction of units A1 and A2, with a capacity of 210 MW each, for which various studies have repeatedly determined that they are becoming less and less reliable and that their reconstruction, increase in power output and extension of operational life are necessary.
