The plant officially started commercial operations in September 2016, but was already out of date in terms of environmental standards. Its environmental permit stipulates compliance only with the older EU Large Combustion Plants (LCP) Directive, not with the newer Industrial Emissions Directive.

The environmental impact assessment process was carried out only for the original, larger version of the project and the Republika Srpska authorities did not require a new process for the new, smaller plant.

While it may appear that a smaller plant has a smaller environmental impact and therefore does not need a new study, several other changes were involved that could alter the situation:

• The project was originally planned to have a net thermal efficiency of 43 percent but the new version is down to 34.1 per cent.
• It was changed from supercritical pulverised lignite technology to subcritical circulating fluidised bed combustion.
• The cooling technology has also been changed from a wet to a dry cooling system. This is one of the main reasons for the loss of thermal efficiency.

Since 2006, Bosnia-Herzegovina has been a party to the Energy Community Treaty, which requires all members to abide by certain EU legislation in the energy sector.

This meant that while developing the Stanari project, Bosnia-Herzegovina was obliged to adhere to the EU LCP Directive, which regulates emissions limit values from power plants. Originally, the Republika Srpska authorities did not include the emissions limit values from the LCP Directive in Stanari’s environmental permit, but rather much laxer standards from domestic legislation with emissions 2-3 times higher.

In January 2014 an official complaint was submitted to the Energy Community Secretariat by the Center for Environment from Banja Luka and in July 2015 it was announced that the Stanari environmental permit would be updated following changes in the Republika Srpska legislation. Nevertheless, this still puts Stanari several years behind EU legislation, and it is highly likely that it will have to undergo additional investments to meet stricter emissions standards before the end of its lifetime.