Shafaqna English– In a late Friday(24 Jul 2026) announcement, the chief executive officer of Serbia’s state-owned power utility, EPS, revealed that the country’s largest hydroelectric facility, the Djerdap 1 plant, is currently functioning at just one-third of its normal daily generation capacity.
This severe reduction in output has been directly caused by the Danube River’s water levels falling to critically low points, a situation that has been exacerbated by the prolonged summer heatwaves and widespread drought conditions that are currently affecting river systems across much of Europe.
In his late Friday briefing, EPS CEO Dusan Zivkovic revealed that the May-June period saw the company’s hydroelectric output at Djerdap 1 fall to its lowest level for those two months since the power plant was commissioned in 1970—a stark illustration of the extreme weather impacts.
The Djerdap 1 facility, which is managed jointly by Serbia and Romania under a bilateral agreement, has a total nameplate capacity of 1,140 MW, a substantial portion of which remains untapped due to the current hydrological constraints caused by the Danube’s unprecedented low-flow conditions.