Serbia’s state-owned energy company Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) produces up to seven million tonnes of ash and slag annually in its coal-fired power plants. A small part of this is sold, the rest is disposed of in ash dumps. Lafarge Serbia plans to build a factory near the Nikola Tesla B power plant, where all the ash produced as a byproduct of combustion will be used as a raw material for cement production.
Lafarge Serbia’s new factory would use one million tonnes of ash from the Nikola Tesla B (TENT B) power plant annually for cement production. By using ash as a raw material in Serbia, the cement manufacturer is applying the principle of circular economy.
According to EPS, coal-fired power plants in Serbia produce between six and seven million tonnes of ash annually, but only five to six percent of this is sold. Last year, this figure was only 180,000 tonnes.
The rest is disposed of in EPS’s own ash dumps, which cover an area of 1,600 hectares. Although the disposed ash is classified as non-hazardous waste, it still enters the air and soil, polluting the environment.
The new factory in Ratari near Obrenovac would be the first in Serbia to be built next to a power plant to use ash at source.
Lafarge Serbia could solve the long-standing problem of ash accumulation in Serbia
With an investment of around 110 million euros, Lafarge Serbia’s cement plant could solve the long-standing problem of ash accumulation in Serbia, as the factory will also process ash from existing ash dumps.
There are two ways to use ash in the construction industry.
“Materials that can be used in road construction come from existing ash dumps. This material is ready for use in road construction. However, newly produced ash, known as fly ash, cannot be used in the cement or concrete industry or many other industries without prior processing. This is exactly what the Ratari plant will deal with. We will grind, classify and select one million tons of ash to produce new construction materials,” Dimitrije Knjeginjić, CEO of Lafarge Serbia, told RTS.
The factory would help advance the circular economy in Serbia, while EPS would reduce the amount of ash sent to landfills, lower operating costs and potentially profit from ash sales.
The use of the ash will be of great importance to the company when the CBAM comes into force on January 1, 2026. The regulation provides for a tax on every tonne of CO2 emitted during the production of aluminium, iron, steel, cement, artificial fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen exported to the EU.
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