Germany's RWE Mulls up to 3,000 MW Hydro Power Plants in Serbia, Bosnia

German utility group RWE said on Monday it will be looking at potential locations in Serbia and neighboring Bosnia for the construction of hydro power plants with a combined capacity of up to 3,000 megawatts (MW).

The sites are located on the Danube, Morava and Drina rivers. The Drina site is located in Bosnia's Serb Republic, RWE said in a statement posted on its website.

The Serb Republic together with the Muslim-Croat Federation forms post-war Bosnia.

RWE said it signed on Monday a memorandum of understanding with Serbian state-owned power utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) and the Serbian government for the purposes of the hydro power project.

"Going forward, the partners intend to cooperate in joint projects to develop the Serbian electricity market," the statement said.

The agreement was signed on Monday during Serbian President Boris Tadic’s visit to Berlin for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Bosnia's Serb Republic is also supporting the project because of its cross-border significance for the energy supply in the whole region, RWE said.

Modern hydro pumped-storage and run-of-river power plant technology will tap the extensive hydro power potential in the region and secure carbon dioxide-free energy supply to the population there, it added.

Serbia has 2,835 MW of installed hydro power capacity, according to the latest data available on the EPS website (www.eps.rs).

The Serb Republic already has one hydro power complex on the Drina river, HE na Drini, which has an installed capacity of 315 MW, according to data of the Republic's power utility, Elektroprivreda RS (www.ers.ba).

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