The construction of two reversible ones is pompously announced in Serbia hydropower plants.
"In the hydro sector, there are two most important projects under development - i RHE 'Bistrica' i RHE 'Djerdap 3'Minister Đedović Handanović told Radio Belgrade 1 in mid-June 2026.
However, their construction is accompanied by a whole set of irregularities and ambiguities - from foreign partners who exclusively ask that only their companies participate in the work, over the doubling of the value of the work, to the setting up of work that has been waiting for 40 years to be signed within the framework of the regime's big project - the Expo 2027 exhibition.
Value increased 114 percent in one year
"Bistrica is a big project for us, we once thought it would be 700 million, but now we see that 1,2 billion will come out", said Aleksandar Vučić on July 31, 2023. That "once upon a time" was only six months earlier, and a year earlier, the Ministry of Infrastructure, within the Spatial Plan of the reversible hydropower plant (RHE) "Bistrica", stated that the indicative value of the investment was 560 million euros. "Time" was written.
According to this, it turns out that the inflation hit the reversible hydropower plants the most, since the investment value of RHE "Bistrica" increased by 114 percent in just one year, far more than, say, food and energy. Since then, the cost of construction has been skyrocketing, even though there has been essentially no technological advancement or market disruption to justify it.
Already in October 2022, EPS presented a new estimate of 625 million euros, in June 2023 the Ministry of Mining and Energy (MRE) raised the price to 835 million euros as part of the "Plan for the development of energy infrastructure and energy efficiency measures for the period until 2028", so that Vučić, during his visit to Priboj in 2023, would once again raise the bar to an incredible 1,2 billion euros for a power plant with a capacity of 650 megawatts.
From the Chinese to the Japanese
RHE "Bistrica" is actually an old project for which EPS signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Canada's Lavalin and China's China Nuclear Power Engineering in March 2012, after which it seems to have fallen into oblivion, until it was updated after a series of accidents at EPS in December 2021.
Still, geopolitical developments and the war in Ukraine, and often unenviable results of Chinese companies on various projects in Serbia, non-transparency, corruption, low environmental standards, as well as work delaysand payments to subcontractors, led the Serbian authorities to change their decision and to choose Japanese companies for "Bistrica" as more reliablee partners, wrote Demostat in 2023
The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) should be in charge of the design part of the work, while the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) would provide financing.finances.
This summer, the Ministry of Energy and the Japan International Cooperation Agency said that the official loan agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which is a key partner in this work, will be solemnized during Expo 2027.
Photo: EPSHPP Bistrica
Only Americans can play "Djerdap 3"
The Minister of Mining and Energy, Dubravka Đedović Handanović, stated at the beginning of July 2026 that six companies expressed interest in the construction of the reversible hydroelectric power plant "Đerdap 3" through a public invitation.
The plan is megalomaniacal - to expand the projected capacity of 2.400 megawatts by an additional 400 megawatts from renewable wind and solar sources, which would make "Đerdap 3" a hybrid energy giant and officially the largest battery in Europe with planned completion by 2038.
The choice of partners, i.e. companies that will build such a large energy complex, is potentially controversial. It will be implemented according to the Agreement between the Government of Serbia and the Government of the USA on strategic cooperation in the field of energy, which is in force from March 2025, and the Embassy of the United States of America in Serbia published a public call for expressions of interest to participate in the construction project of the Reversible Hydroelectric Power Plant (RHE) "Đerdap 3".
The strategic partner will be chosen by the Government Working Group, which is not in accordance with the regulation on public procurement, and the Agreement also shows that he will be chosen from among American companies that have expressed interest based on the letter of interest. In other words, companies outside the US will not have the right to participate in this procedure.
The Romanian question and the environment
Two years ago, Romania warned that the construction of "Đerdap 3" must not threaten the stability of the existing joint hydropower plants "Đerdap 1" and "Đerdap 2". At that time, Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduža said that Bucharest would not support a solution that could negatively affect the existing system on the Danube.
That is why talks are ongoing between the competent ministries of the two countries and joint commissions that assess the hydrological and ecological consequences of the project.
In addition to the international dimension, the project has been raising questions about the possible impact on the environment for years.
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