Serbia Faces Rising Power Imports After Floods Fill Coal Mine
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Serbia’s electricity imports may top 10 percent of its average annual consumption during the winter after record floods in May turned the nation’s biggest coal mine into a lake.
The worst Balkan floods in more than a century filled the largest open pit of the RB Kolubara miner with 187 million cubic meters of water and silt, leaving excavating equipment at the bottom of what is now a three-square-mile tank. Kolubara, whose lignite fuels more than half of Serbia’s power output, hopes to reach 70 percent capacity next month, or 65,000 tons a day, after draining and restarting three other pits.