All the countries of the Western Balkans are undergoing energy transformation, and the future of the region is in networking and a single energy market, it was said today at the online conference “Green Economy of the Region” organized by the Adria Media Group.
Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic said that Serbia has a high level of total energy production, which makes it far less energy dependent, but that the fact that two thirds of electricity is produced from coal imposes several priorities, among which it is especially important to make production more environmentally responsible and enable greater representation of renewable energy sources.
He stated that in the past period, a lot of work was done to make the production of electricity from coal more environmentally responsible, so almost 400 million euros were invested in various environmental projects in the thermal sector.
The Minister stated that Serbia was the absolute leader in the region in 2018 and 2019 with new projects, which primarily refers to wind farms, and that it is planned to continue with that in the coming period.
His colleague, Croatian Minister of Environmental Protection and Energy Tomislav Coric, said that from the perspective of the Croatian Government, the “green plan” was welcomed with great approval and that the goal was to further encourage renewable energy sources.
The general director of the Economic Institute in Belgrade, Dragan Sagovnovic, says that with all the orientation to go more and more to energy from renewable sources, in many countries, security of supply is determined from conventional sources.
Each country must start from its own resources, and adjust the rhythm of the transition to green energy accordingly, he said.
The head of the regional office of the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the West, Dubravka Negre, said that now the EIB allocates 30 percent of its financing to the fight against climate change, and that she wants to increase it to 50 percent from 2025.
She stated that the EIB has committed itself to mobilize at least 100 billion euros by 2027 to support countries to join the environmental transition.
“Such a platform is also necessary for the countries of the Western Balkans, because it is important that the countries of this region do not lag behind in ecological development and that they integrate economies into the European market,” Negre said.
The Ambassador of the Republic of Germany to Serbia, Thomas Schieb, warned that the coronary virus pandemic, which has affected the whole world, is not the biggest security and danger challenge for the planet, but global warming that causes climate change, which is why it is necessary switching to renewable energy sources.
The director of the Energy Community, Janez Kopac, stated that the secretariat of this institution initiated the idea of gradual integration of the energy sector in terms of carbon dioxide with the EU, so that the transition could last 10 to 15 years, but should start now.
At the second panel of the conference, Aleksandar Macura, director of the RES Foundation’s program, spoke about smart ugly people, emphasizing that they can include those that provide optimal living conditions so as not to jeopardize future development, which means not only the ways we spend energy but and a lot of planning.
General Manager of “Sneider Electric Serbia and Montenegro” Ksenija Karic says that the general trend in the world is for companies to turn to renewable sources.
He points out that it is important to prepare for shutting down all fossil fuel power plants and switching to RES.
Director of Siemens Energy Belgrade, Petar Sainovic, pointed out that Serbia has done a lot lately when it comes to energy efficiency
“A lot of people don’t know, but if we take surface mines in EPS, they don’t lag behind the same mines in the world. They have modernized all their plants and the mines are, in a way, at the forefront of energy efficient solutions,” says Sainovic.
With the raising of awareness, I hope that we will very soon reach the level of developed countries in terms of energy efficiency in production and consumption in industrial energy facilities, he explained.
The head of the program “Development of a sustainable bioenergy market in Serbia” GIZ Milica Vukadinovic said that at the beginning of the work on that program it was difficult to raise awareness of citizens and decision makers how important the use of biomass for heating in local governments is.
He states that Giz successfully established the transition to the use of biomass in four schools with the city of Pirot in 2017, and that those experiences were interesting to other local governments that expressed interest in it, Dnevnik reports.
