Development of resistance against small hydropower plants in Serbia

For more than a decade now, small hydropower plants (SHPPs) are being erected en masse on Serbian mountain rivers and streams. Their encouragement is part of a wider story that revolves around the fight against climate change, and around attempts to reduce the production of energy by use of coal, thus increasing the production of electricity in a way that would be less harmful to nature and human health.

Serbia has committed to the Energy Community to increase the share of electricity from renewable sources to 27% by 2020. The latest data show that, in 2019, the percentage produced from renewable sources was 21.44%. In line with its obligations, the state encouraged private investors to invest in SHPPs by creating favorable business conditions for them. Namely, it guaranteed investors that it would purchase electricity from SHPPs at a higher price for 12 years. The money also came from the citizens, via their electricity bills. Although this system of state incentives is recommended in the initial years to enable green energy market to come to life, Serbia has continued to use it much longer. Since 2015, the European Commission has been recommending that Serbia change the incentive, i.e., to switch to a payment system that would be less favorable for investors.

Typical small hydropower plants of the derivative type, which are most common in Serbia, were often built in breach of the environmental standards, to the detriment of nature as well as the local population. There are known examples of arbitrariness of investors who, contrary to regulations, had pulled up vegetation from river banks. This happened, for example, during the construction of SHPP on Jošanica River at the foot of Kopaonik in 2014. People living in the immediate vicinity of the SHPP have published footage of dry riverbeds that left them without water for their cattle. As the expert community had been warning, less water in the river also negatively impacted the living world in it.

The “cramming of rivers into pipes”, as opponents described the above projects, caused local protests – first in the southeast, and then elsewhere in Serbia as well. Over time, these grew into a mass revolt. The same problem united locals from different regions, activists and organisations, mobilising, across the country, people who until recently did not know anything about the topic. In 2018, small hydroelectric power plants became the main problem related to the protection of the environment. It was the first ecological topic that drew thousands of people to the streets of Belgrade in 2019. Viewed as slightly amateurish, long, and freewheeling even by the activists themselves, rallies against SHPPs gained the support of the academic community, experts and the public. They resulted in far more massive protests that drew public attention to numerous other environmental problems, such as air pollution and harmful effects of mining.

This case study was developed as part of a joint effort by the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), the National Coalition for Decentralisation (NKD), the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) and Partners for Democratic Change, to encourage greater citizen participation in the decision-making process through the project “Citizens Have Power”, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The views expressed in this case study are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of USAID.