Seven Heating Plants Seek Price Hikes, Nis Wants 4.5%

Seven of Serbia’s 60 district heating plants have asked their local governments for permission to raise heating prices, but as of September 24 none of the requests had been approved, the Beta news agency reports. The requests came from Nis, Subotica, Stara Pazova, Velika Plana and Belgrade, while Krusevac and Majdanpek are keeping this year’s prices unchanged, despite an increase in energy costs that is hitting every heating plant in the country.

Nis Proposes a 4.5 Percent Price Hike

The supervisory board of the Nis heating utility proposed a 4.5 percent price increase back in August. Under the plan, the variable part of the price would rise from 7.15 to 7.19 dinars per kilowatt hour, while the fixed part would jump from 42.74 to 49.44 dinars per square meter. Unlike Belgrade, where the proposal is tied to installed capacity, the Nis plan changes both parts of the bill at once, meaning households would feel the increase both through their consumption and through the fixed portion of the tariff.

Is Heating Getting More Expensive Across Serbia?

Not everywhere, and Subotica, Stara Pazova and Velika Plana show why. Subotica’s heating utility announced on September 2 that it had filed for a price change, only to later confirm that it will start the heating season at existing prices after all, with no increase. The municipality of Stara Pazova filed its request on August 31, and Velika Plana followed a day later, on September 1. Unlike Subotica, those two requests have not been withdrawn, but the local governments involved have yet to rule on them, so the price for the coming heating season in those two towns remains unknown.

Krusevac and Majdanpek Hold Prices Steady

Milutin Tasic, director of the public utility JKP Krusevac, told Beta that heating prices will stay the same this year and that the company has secured both coal and fuel oil for the season, with a trial run of the system starting at the end of the week.

“We’re finding a way, despite the rising cost of energy sources, not to raise prices. We secured coal, fuel oil and everything else we need,” Tasic said.

The situation is similar in Majdanpek, where the local heating plant is not changing its prices even though wood chips, the fuel it relies on, have gone up 10 percent in price. Director Djordje Roskic says the local government is covering the difference in cost.

“The local government is helping us with subsidies,” Roskic said.

Between them, the two towns show that rising energy costs do not automatically have to land on residents’ bills, as long as the local budget absorbs part of the burden or supplies have been contracted in advance.

Belgrade Seeks the Biggest Increase

Beogradske Elektrane, Belgrade’s public heating utility, asked the city’s Secretariat for Energy on August 25 for a new heating price list to take effect on October 1, at the start of the new heating season. Under the request, the variable part of the price for residential and business space would actually drop 5.57 percent, while the fixed part tied to installed capacity would rise 18.02 percent. Once recalculated across heated floor space and installed capacity, the overall increase would come to 9.44 percent before VAT for residential space, and 9.51 percent for business space. That makes it the largest proposed increase of all seven requests filed so far. As we reported earlier, a square meter of heating in Belgrade currently costs 2,021.68 dinars including VAT, a price the proposed hike would push even higher.

None of the seven requests filed so far has cleared the approval process, so residents in five towns and municipalities still do not know the final price for the new heating season. Each local government decides on its own, which means the outcome varies from place to place, as shown by Krusevac and Majdanpek, where an increase has been avoided, and by Nis, where the proposal is already on the table.