Is Croatia at an energetic turning point?
Energy consultant Mladen Pejnović stressed that the Republic of Croatia needs to digitise its energy and communal sector(s) in terms of the European energy package, which is currently very much out of date for its consumers.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of October, 2018, on N1’s EnergyPress emission, energy consultant Mladen Pejnović took to the screen. He spoke of the state’s influence over gas prices, the diversification of gas routes, Krk’s LNG terminal, America’s ”gas war” with Russia, and the overwhelming need across Europe to digitise the energy sector.
He warned that gas is not just a market article and that it must also have a regulatory component. Therefore, it’s impossible for the regulator to increase gas prices until both the basic salaries and pensions in Croatia increase.
He said that the pressure from the United States being placed on Germany and also on good part of Europe over its dependence on Russian gas is without reason.
Pejnović also added that there is no need to be afraid of European uncompetitiveness in the gradual transition to more expensive gas from LNG, because if everyone starts to head in that same direction, then that means that everyone will find themselves in the same starting position.
He praised Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović’s efforts on finding the market for Krk’s LNG Terminal in the Three Seas Initiative, and stressed that Croatia truly needs the LNG Terminal located on Krk, not only because Europe has already given money for it, but also because it will mean that Croatia will become a hub for the eventual diversification of gas supply routes. This will subsequently mean a lot for energy security in this part of Europe, but also for Croatia as an individual country.
He stressed that Croatia needs to digitise its energy and communal sector(s) in line with the European energy package, which is now out of date to its consumers. Such an undertaking, Pejnović said, could halt the outflow of the best engineers from the country, because each local government unit would have a need to employ them for the implementation of such a project.
He concluded that Croatia is now slowly entering into the very end stages of the era of hydrocarbons, and moving forward into the much more modern era of renewable energy sources.
”To arrive to a situation in which we’ll be able to accumulate energy from renewable sources so that we don’t lose a large percentage of that energy, we need a transition energy, and that’s gas,” Pejnović said.
