The Western Balkans region is the last major frontier for new lignite-fired power plants in Europe. Currently, about 6 GW of new lignite capacity is being planned - either with Chinese or unclear financing but generally, in contradiction with the state aid rules and air pollution limits that apply to EU countries, but also to the Western Balkans. There is therefore an urgent need to develop ways to redirect this investment from coal to clean technologies. This project aims to identify such paths.
The urgency is triggered by the "Paris+5" process which requires each party to the UNFCCC to revise its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020. This provides an important opportunity for national governments in 2020 to initiate the next phase of an accelerated energy transition, which is also important for the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans.
The analytical modelling of this project will be carried out by Enervis in cooperation with Agora Energiewende and our local think tank partners ASOR from Serbia, NERDA from Bosnia and Herzegovina and INDEP from Kosovo. The project is linked to two regional projects of Agora Energiewende: South East Europe Energy Transition Dialogue and Western Balkans Energy Transition Dialogue.