On December 30th 2014, the new Energy Law came into force in the Republic of Serbia. As a consequence, the definition of small buyers of electricity has been amended so, in order to be considered as small buyers, a legal entity or entrepreneur shall have the total annual income of up to 10 million EUR in RSD, all of their facilities shall be connected to the distribution system less than 1 kV, and their total electricity consumption in the previous year shall be less than 30.000,00 kWh. All of those who do not comply with the requirements of the new provisions shall loose the right to guaranteed supply as from July 1st 2015. The households and small buyers are guaranteed supply under the reasonable, transparent and non-discriminatory prices. Pursuant to the new Energy Law, regulated price of electricity may be cancelled depending on the regulator’s report which is to be published not later than by May 1st 2017.
The market of natural gas has been fully liberalized, and all the buyers, including households, have right to buy gas on the open market. The definition of the small buyers of natural gas has been changed and now those are the buyers with annual consumption of up to 100.000,00 m3 and with the facilities connected to the distribution system of natural gas.
Furthermore, provisions of the new Energy Law introduce a wholesale supply of electricity. License for wholesale of electricity may be obtained by both national and foreign legal entities.
The transmission and distribution networks are no longer exclusively a public property. They have become the property of distribution system operators (Elektrodistribucija Beograd, Elektrovojvodina, Centar, Jugoistok and Elektrosrbija) and transmission system operator Elektromreze Srbije. The network cannot be pledged nor can it be alienated. Additionally, a closed distribution system is introduced in the Serbian legal system.
Acquisition of license for energy facilities producing energy in the facilities of up to 1MW is now clearly defined. The license is mandatory in all cases when the same energy operator produces electricity in two or more energy facilities where the total power exceeds 1 MW, irrespective of the fact whether they are connected via one or few connections.