Electricity from renewable energy sources in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been generated by small hydropower plants, wind farms, solar power plants, biomass, and biogas-fired power plants.
Owners of these plants are mostly private companies, which have the privilege of selling all their electricity to utility companies at feed-in tariffs that do not change regardless of variations in price at the market. In the Federation of BiH, the power generators sign contracts for 12 years, and in RS for 15 years for SHHPs, wind farms, and solar plants, and five years for other power plants.
In addition to this privilege, the generators are paid an incentive to generate the so-called “clean energy”. The incentive scheme is fed through the electricity bills paid by citizens of BiH. The more the plants, the bigger the electricity bills of the citizens.
The authorities most often claim this electricity generation is incentivized because BiH has committed to it under international agreements aimed at increasing the generation from renewable sources, foreign and domestic investments in this area, providing new jobs, and protecting the environment.
According to data collected by CIN reporters from Entity RES operators, in the period from 2015 to 2020, the plant owners were paid at least BAM 207 million. This amount is even higher, given that the institutions in the FBiH do not have data on the paid incentives for 2016 and 2017 in their records, while the institutions from the RS submitted data for the period from January to September 2020.
In addition to information on the number of incentives, in this database, you can also find information on the name and type of plant, owners, and the volume of electricity generated.