Medeja Lončar: Siemens Croatia independently exported 76 million kuna worth of goods and services in 2017.

Medeja Lončar, the new CEO of Siemens Croatia, who took over this position at the beginning of this month while retaining her existing role as CEO of Siemens Slovenia, expects continued business growth in line with global forecasts.

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– Given that Croatia imports a significant portion of its electricity, we believe that new power plant projects will be initiated to compensate for this import to some extent, as well as the development of smart grids. We also expect projects in water management and in the field of e-mobility – said Lončar, emphasizing that Siemens Croatia will continue to be managed from Zagreb, just as Siemens Slovenia will be managed from Ljubljana, although she will travel more frequently.

Siemens Croatia has grown in almost all sectors, and the new CEO announces further growth in all areas.

>>> Medeja Lončar is the new CEO of Siemens Croatia

– In the last business year, Siemens Croatia independently exported goods and services worth 76 million kuna, but as we are globally committed to working together with our clients on their transformation and increasing competitiveness through the introduction of new technologies and consulting on their change, Siemens’ contribution to the development of Croatian export companies exceeds that figure. With further growth in cooperation and business with other Croatian companies, I believe we can effectively participate in the growth of the entire economy – said Lončar, praising the government’s announcement to develop a national strategy for the digitalization of the economy, which includes the implementation of Industry 4.0 concepts among its goals.

The process of digital transformation of the economy can, she said, be accelerated by raising awareness of its necessity and rejecting pessimism.

She drew attention to an interesting project by Siemens and HEP in the distribution area of Elektra Koprivnica – a super-fast self-healing network based on a decentralized system and wireless technology using the IEC1850 communication protocol, the first such network in Europe.

>>> Siemens: The first super-fast self-healing network in Croatia

– A decentralized system means that there is no central system making decisions; instead, controllers embedded along the network communicate with each other in real-time, which requires high-speed information exchange. Engineers at Siemens Croatia have mastered very demanding technical conditions and created a system that eliminates faults and reconfigures the network in less than 0.3 seconds. Power interruptions have been reduced to the extent that devices connected to the network do not even notice them (e.g., a computer or TV does not turn off/restart) and behave as if no power interruption occurred. This is a step towards fully autonomous systems with artificial intelligence within Smart Grid technologies. Likewise, renewable energy sources connected to such a network do not disconnect from it. It is essential to raise awareness as much as possible that such endeavors are feasible regardless of the state of the economy, and only in this way will there be more of them – concluded Lončar.