Energia gas and power will therefore start offering the zero-carbon electricity product CO2 Free at the beginning of next year, both in the Slovenian and in the Italian market, “thereby offsetting the carbon footprint not with electricity that had been greened-up with guarantees of origin, but by using Certified Emission Reductions from projects in developing countries, issued by the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. These reductions are a sort of leverage used to reduce global emissions by enabling large companies in developed countries to increase the profitability of environmental projects in less developed countries,” explained Bračko Colja, adding that projects which the companies can choose from do not only generate savings from renewable production, “but have significantly greater economic and social impacts”.

The second product that Energia gas and power intends to put on the market is a platform, which is currently in the implementation phase. In the first phase, the platform will mainly target households, “as large business consumers require more individualised treatment,” offering “online calculation”. According to Bračko Colja, the platform will “use the data which it receives to calculate possible savings and suggest scenarios with which to achieve them. However, we wanted to go even further and be even more innovative, so the platform also allows the user to purchase devices which can generate these savings, including solar panels, heat pumps, and air-conditioning systems. Additionally, since we are aware of the rapid technological development in this field, we are now building our own innovation incubator for sustainable development, so the platform will allow our clients to buy very advanced and innovative products”.

According to Bračko Colja, the interest in such services is already there. She warned, however, that “compared to other EU countries, Slovenia is lagging behind considerably in terms of reducing its carbon footprint. We have no more than five clients whose operations are carbon neutral or who have at least one product in their production cycle for which they manage to offset the carbon footprint of its life cycle. In Europe, this is already common practice. It is actually rare to find banks, institutions, and large producers that are not operating in a carbon neutral way. Big supermarket chains go even further by choosing carbon-neutral suppliers, thereby reducing their own footprint. Slovenia is really lagging behind other EU members in this regard”.

Lack of initiative

Meanwhile, Evald Kranjčevič, Director of Energy Solutions for Industry at the Slovenian energy efficiency company Resalta, noted that Slovenia’s climate plants have never “been particularly ambitious” and that we are now recovering from a period of lost opportunities. However, something still needs to be done. Kranjčevič explains that there are two issues when it comes to the industry – one relates to the risk to energy supply security and to ensuring adequate production, whereas the other relates to lowering costs.

“Energy is always the main player in lowering costs, which consequently raises the environmental issue,” said Kranjčevič, adding that we need to adapt, however, the companies are mostly operating within a framework dictated by the policies and the state or the EU. “Every company likes to believe that it is sustainable and green, however, carbon neutrality costs money. This is an image which one also has to pay for,” he stressed, adding that Resalta would also like to see a bigger breakthrough in this field in Slovenia, “so that the companies would start investing more than they need to at their own initiative”. What we need here is a vision, said Kranjčevič.

Communication is one of the most essential processes in project implementation. There has been a lot of facile and simplified talk in the public about how a certain type of infrastructure will harm the environment in a certain way. When you try to present a complex project, deploy a complex solution, it can be very difficult, as the solution is not simple at all, stressed Boštjan Krajnc, Director of the Slovenian Energy Agency Kssena. He added that communication is very important – it is vital that the solutions are revealed to the public, so that everyone can take part in the process.

Eco Fund expecting further development in industrial energy savings

In 2018, Slovenia’s Eco Fund also began to apply measures in the industry, explained the fund’s Director, Mojca Vendramin. “The Eco Fund is one of the key pillars of energy efficiency in Slovenia. In the last 10 years, we mostly focused on the energy renovation of apartment buildings, whereas last year, we also began to introduce incentives for companies. Progress has been slow, however, the demand for incentives for energy efficiency measures in the industry is increasing,” she explained.

According to Vendramin, “one can see that the culture of green growth and green production is perhaps a bit weak in Slovenia, as demand for incentives to carry out energy audits – where the subsidy is 50% – is very low,” she said.

Vendramin also noted that there is significant energy saving potential in the industry. “The Eco Fund generates about 200 GWh of energy savings per year by renovating apartment buildings, whereas in the industry, a single project can help save 10 GWh. So there is huge potential on the national level. And I believe that there will be further development in this field.” Read also Mojca Vendramin: Eco Fund Is a Vital Pillar of Slovenia's Energy Policy.

Demand response

Talum is now in talks with the Slovenian energy solutions provider NGEN about setting up an energy storage system, which NGEN had already done for the Slovenian steelmaker Acroni. According to Boštjan Korošec, Talum has made its infrastructure available for the installation of a system that is expected to be more powerful than the 12.6 MW, 22.2 MWh Powerpack set up at the Acroni plant. In addition to rental income, Talum hopes to use the storage system in case of anomalies in the grid, i.e. supply failures in the transmission network, to briefly bridge the gaps using the energy from the storage system. On the other hand, Talum’s generator sets could feed energy into the system to be used during periods of scarcity, thus providing ancillary services and helping ensure greater stability of the transmission system. Talum could participate in the process with its technological equipment that can offer flexibility but has just never been used for this purpose before. This is part of the company’s efforts to possibly optimise its processes further and increase its energy efficiency.