Serbia Aims to Become Regional Leader in Electricity Generation

The construction of the “reversible” HPP Djerdap-3 will allow Serbia to become a regional leader in electricity production. As stated by Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic at the presentation of the ambitious project, “the construction of the hydropower plant will change the future and energy security of Serbia for the next 60 years.”

The Minister emphasized that Djerdap-3 is a 100% Serbian project, not a common one with Romania, as it was during the socialist camp: “The power plant will be located on our territory,” emphasized Djedovic Handanovic.

“Reversible” HPP Djerdap-3 will be built by Elektroprivreda Srbije (Electric Power Industry of Serbia) on the Danube River, near the village of Dobra in the municipality of Golubac.

This will be the third power plant named Djerdap after the first one built in 1972 and the second in 1985. Unlike the first two, which were joint projects between Yugoslavia and Romania, the Djerdap-3 power plant will be built entirely on Serbian territory.

As explained by Elektroprivreda Srbije, the Djerdap-3 power plant will function as a conventional hydroelectric power plant, i.e. it will receive electricity from turbines driven by falling water. But the system is also reversible and is able to draw water from the bottom and refill the upper basin, working like a pump. In the first mode the plant generates electricity, in the second mode it consumes it and returns the water to where it was. With this feature, the power station acts like a super battery. When the electricity flows, the power plant, which effectively connects two pools with an elevation difference of 380-407 meters between them and about 2 kilometers apart (image below), uses it by pumping the water back up, effectively converting that electric energy into potential energy. “It will also be a seasonal storage for the excess energy produced,” the Serbian minister emphasized.