Production of lignite in the Western Balkans - statistics

Data extracted in June 2023

No planned article update

Highlights

The indigenous production of lignite increased by 17% in the Western Balkans between 1990 and 2022.

In 2022, 55% of the electricity and derived heat in the Western Balkans was produced from lignite.

Production of brown coal in Western Balkan countries and neighbouring EU countries, 2022

*(XK) This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence
Production of brown coal in Western Balkan countries and neighbouring EU countries, 2022. Brown coal consists of the addition of lignite and sub-bituminous coal. In 2021, lignite made up 99.6 % of the brown coal consumed in the EU, and sub-bituminous coal 0.4 %.
Data for 2022 as an aggregate of monthly data in dataset nrg_cb_sffm
Source: Eurostat (online data code: (nrg_cb_sffm)

This article explains how the production of lignite in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo^[1], Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) has evolved since 1990, and highlights its use for electricity generation. The article also gives figures on the transformation efficiency of lignite compared to other fuels. As almost all lignite produced by countries is used domestically, lignite trade in the Western Balkans is negligible. Therefore, this article focuses on inland production and consumption.

Full article

What is lignite and how important is this fossil fuel in the Western Balkans?

Lignite is a type of solid fossil fuel. Together with sub-bituminous coal, lignite is part of the so-called ‘brown coal’ group. Compared with hard coals (anthracite, other bituminous coal, coking coal), lignite has a lower energy content i.e. a low calorific value. In practice, lignite’s calorific value is about 10 MJ/kg, depending on the country and the individual mine concerned. This is well below the maximum official gross calorific value (20 MJ/kg) as described in Regulation (EU) No 2146/2019. Despite its low energy content, lignite is one of the few primary energy resources that is available in relatively large quantities on the national territory of some Western Balkan countries. Using lignite is cheaper than importing other fossil fuels and limits energy dependency in these countries.

Figure 1: Evolution of indigenous production of lignite in the Western Balkans, 1990-2022 (kt)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_cb_sff), (nrg_cb_sffm)

The indigenous production of lignite in the Western Balkans increased from 54 515 thousand tonnes (kt) to 63 690 kt between 1990 and 2022, an increase of 17 %. In 1990, there were three producing countries (Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia). From the year 2000, three other countries also started to produce lignite, namely Kosovo in 2000, Montenegro in 2005 and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014. In Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Kosovo, the production never exceeded 10 000 kt per year. Albania stopped its production in 2013, but started it again in 2022 in very low quantities, all of them exported afterwards. In 2022, all six Western Balkan countries produced lignite, with Serbia being the largest producer (see Figure 1).

Figure 2: Indigenous production of lignite in the Western Balkans, 1990-2022 (in %, based on kt)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_cb_sff), (nrg_cb_sffm)

Two countries have continuously produced lignite since 1990 (Serbia and North Macedonia) and their production accounted for 63 % of the total indigenous production of the Western Balkans in 2022 (see Figure 2). The production of Serbia represented 55 % of the total production in 2022: however, Serbia’s lignite production decreased almost continuously from 45 800 kt in 1990 to 35 129 kt in 2022. Bosnia and Herzegovina has produced lignite since 2014 and accounted for 21 % of the total production in 2022.

What is lignite used for and how is it different to other fuels?

Countries in the Western Balkans producing lignite used around 96 % of their lignite consumption in 2021 for electricity and heat production (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Lignite use for electricity and heat generation in the Western Balkans, 2021
Source: Eurostat (nrg_cb_sff)

Lignite is almost exclusively used for electricity and heat production in North Macedonia and Kosovo. Small quantities, particularly in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, are used for other purposes such as to produce brown coal briquettes or for final consumption by industry, households or services.

Figure 4: Production of electricity and derived heat by type of fuel in the Western Balkans in 2021
Source: Eurostat (nrg_bal_peh)

In 2021, lignite accounted for 55 % of total gross electricity produced in the Western Balkans, amounting to 44 931 GWh (see Figure 4). Compared to other fuels, lignite is by far the most significant fuel in the Western Balkans. The second largest source for electricity and heat production is renewables, representing 41 % of total gross electricity production in the Western Balkans (including 38 % hydro and 2 % wind, see Figures 4 and 5). When taking into account only Western Balkan countries producing and using lignite for their gross electricity production, the share of lignite in total gross electricity produced reaches 62 %. Although lignite still has a significant share of total gross electricity produced in the Western Balkans, this share decreased in recent years, with a share loss of 8 percentage points between 2019 and 2021, mostly to renewables.

Figure 5: Fuels in total electricity production in the Western Balkans, 2021 (%)
Source: Eurostat (nrg_bal_peh)

At country level, most Western Balkan countries depend to a large extent on lignite, as over 50 % of the electricity produced in 2021 was based on lignite in three out of six countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 60 %; Serbia, 62 %; Kosovo, 93 %; see Figure 5). Between 2019 and 2021, the share of lignite in the electricity production of North Macedonia fell very sharply from 60 % to 40 %, with natural gas and hydro progressively replacing lignite.

How efficient are the technologies used to transform lignite into electricity?

Figure 6: Evolution of transformation efficiencies of Western Balkans electricity only plants for lignite, 1990-2021
Source: Eurostat (nrg_bal_peh) and (nrg_ind_pehcf)

Transformation efficiency refers to the relation between transformation input and transformation output with regards to the energy of a fuel (e.g. transformation of lignite into electricity). Transformation efficiencies in the Western Balkans increased between 1990 and 2021 for lignite by 3.1 percentage points.

What is the environmental impact of lignite?

All fossil fuels contain carbon which is released in the form of greenhouse gases (e.g. carbon dioxide, methane) when combusted. Therefore, burning lignite contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon dioxide emission factor is calculated from the carbon within the fuel. This factor differs depending on lignite quality. Unlike EU Member States, most Western Balkan data do not include raw data (Common Reporting Format tables) for the UN-FCCC thus, carbon emission factors are not always available. In their 2021 Biennial Update Reports, Montenegro and North Macedonia stated that most carbon dioxide emissions were due to the production of energy and heat. Lignite plays a large role in this production: 38 % of electricity production in Montenegro and 40 % in North Macedonia is based on lignite respectively (see Figure 5). Montenegro reported a carbon dioxide emission factor of 99.2 tCO2/TJ and North Macedonia of 107.9 tCO2/TJ, which are in the range of EU data reported to the UNFCCC. Compared to other fuels, more carbon dioxide is emitted when producing electricity from lignite than from other fuels such as other bituminous coal and natural gas. For instance, one gigawatt of electricity produced using lignite results in almost double the amount of CO2 emissions compared to 1 GWh produced using natural gas (see SE article Production of lignite in the EU).

Summary

Lignite is by far the main fuel for electricity and heat production in the Western Balkans. Despite environmental concerns about this fossil fuel, some non-EU Western Balkan countries have projects for new lignite power plants such as Serbia (as stated in their first Biennial Update Report). As a result of the current discussion on climate change at European and global level, EU Member States started to reduce lignite use. The opposite has been observed in several Western Balkan countries, although from 2019 onwards, various declining trends were observed in the region for lignite, to be confirmed in the long term.

Source data for tables and graphs

Production of lignite in the Western Balkans - tables and graphs

Data sources

The production and consumption data of hard coal and lignite between 1990 and 2021 are based on data from the annual solid fossil fuels questionnaire. For the latest available 2022 data, cumulative monthly data was used. These cumulative monthly data could be considered as provisional/estimates of annual statistics. Figure 6 is based on data from the annual electricity and heat questionnaire.

Context

The Energy statistics Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 is the legal basis for the reporting of annual energy questionnaires.

Direct access to

Visualisations

Energy visualisation tools

Supply, transformation and consumption - commodity balances (annual) - ESMS metadata file (nrg_cb_esms)
Energy statistics - quantities - ESMS metadata file (nrg_quant_esms)
Energy statistics - supply, transformation, consumption (monthly) - ESMS metadata file (nrg_10m_esms)

Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 of 22 October 2008 on energy statistics
Treaty establishing the Energy Community

External links

Notes

↑ This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

[1] This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

[1]