The power plant in Otilovići should be exempted from the construction ban

- At the moment , every energy facility that uses a renewable energy source is important and we hope that sHPP “Otilovići” will find understanding of the Government and the competent Ministry of Capital Investments, due to the specificity and existed infrastructure where practically only mechanics are missing, and without further impact on the environment,  believes Nikola Rovčanin, Chief Executive Officer of EPCG, on the occasion of the adoption announcement of the Declaration banning the construction of small hydropower plants.

He claims that the impact of this sHPP in the actual village in Pljevlja would be insignificant on the environment, and that the company and the state would have significant economic and energy benefits.

- The project is completely acceptable, because it is technically feasible, ecologically stable, economically safe and sociologically acceptable. This sHPP would use the excess water from the already existing reservoir, which was made for the needs of Thermal Power Plant Pljevlja (TPP).

An arch-concrete dam 59 meters high with accompanying facilities was built for the needs of the TPP, and the volume of the created hydro-accumulation is about 18 million cubic meters. According to previous hydrological tests, the average long-term flow on the dam profile is 4.68 cubic meters per second. This gives the possibility of building the sHPP "Otilovići" next to the existing dam, which would use the surplus water from the accumulation, as well as the water of the biological minimum that is discharged from the accumulation, for the production of electricity, said Rovčanin.

The construction of sHPP "Otilovići" has been analyzed since the beginning of the construction of the dam in 1981, additionally, the project documentation has been revised several times (2001 and 2011), but without realization to this day.

Since the sHPP hasn’t been built upon obtaining conditions, EPCG lost more than 20 million Euro, taking into account that annual generation would be around 600 to 700 thousands.

The spatial urban plan of the municipality of Pljevlja as of 2011 envisaged the construction of the sHPP "Otilovići" next to the existing actual dam. In November 2012, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT) provided urban-technical (UT) conditions for the preparation of investment-technical documentation, after which the preliminary design was innovated and a tender was opened (negotiated procedure) for the preparation of main project and tender documentation for electro-mechanical equipment.

All activities on the project were suspended at the beginning of 2015, to be restarted in 2018, and due to the passage of time and the changed legal framework related to this issue, it was necessary to innovate the project documentation.

In 2019, EPCG asked MORT for the issuance of amended urban-technical conditions for the preparation of technical documentation, which was rejected by the relevant Ministry with a recommendation to conduct a local study on the location of SHPP "Otilovići", in accordance with the Law on Spatial Planning. In October 2019, the Energy Company sent an initiative to the relevant Ministry to prepare a local study on the location, to which it has not yet received a response.

- If legal preconditions are created, EPCG would immediately start the subject construction, Rovčanin pointed out.

According to him, sHPP would work with the existing dam and hydro-accumulation built for the needs of providing TPP with technological water, and that the technical solution of sHPP does not disturb the water regime downstream of the dam, nor the regime of water use of existing users, and has negligible impact on the environment, mainly in the construction phase of the facility.

- The location where the construction of sHPPs is planned is small, with state-owned land. Access roads exist and were built during the construction of the dam "Otilovići". In general, minimal reconstruction of the existing local roads will be carried out, said the Chief Executive Officer of Elektroprivreda Crne Gore.

Rovčanin explained that the analysis showed that the project of sHPP "Otilovići" is ecologically stable, because all facilities of the projected system will be harmoniously integrated together with the already existing energy facilities and into the ecological environment.

- All positive and negative impacts on ecosystems were considered, and by choosing the parameters of the facility and management, solutions were found that maximize the positive, neutralize the negative impacts, enable the smooth development of ecosystems and preserve the existing biodiversity. Since the location is uninhabited, there is no migration of the population, nor any impact on the water supply, which results in the social stability of the project. The project of sHPP "Otilovići" does not destroy the biodiversity of the river Ćehotina, does not disturb the hydrological regime of the river, does not destabilize the existing water supply and does not endanger the traditional way of life of the local population, said Rovčanin.