Pejnović: Energy production from renewable sources has become a commercial reality

Citizen energy occupied the thoughts of participants on the third day of the international conference ‘Good Energy’, organized by the Green Energy Cooperative (ZEZ). Dirk Vansitijan, president of the European Federation of Renewable Energy Cooperatives (REScoop.eu) and founder of the largest Belgian energy cooperative Eco Power with 52,937 members, spoke about energy in the hands of citizens.

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– We advocate for energy democracy. The principles of REScoop are voluntary and open membership, economic participation, democratic ownership, and independence. We gather 1,300 energy cooperatives and over a million citizens. In the last ten years, a total of two trillion euros has been invested, said Vansitijan.

Scottish Wind Farm

Paul Phare, an expert and practitioner working in the English energy cooperative Energy4all with over 15 years of experience in citizen energy projects, spoke about cooperative financing of citizen energy projects. He has assisted five energy cooperatives in Scotland, including the Lancashire cooperative, which raised over three million pounds for a wind farm project. He emphasized that they have good cooperation with local government.

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– Local power brokers come to our door; we do not have to knock on theirs for projects, Phare pointed out.

Dirk added that we need the Scottish example everywhere in Europe, as it is a very important bright example because the Scottish government has created very favorable frameworks for citizen energy.

More energy in the hands of citizens

Zdenko Kirinčić, manager of the energy cooperative of the island of Krk, stated that it would be ideal for all energy cooperatives to unite.

Regarding greater recognition of cooperatives, Ilda Stanojević, director of the Croatian Center for Cooperative Entrepreneurship, said that in this sense, initiating the story about amending the Cooperative Law is a redundant story and that problems will not be solved this way.

– The problem with cooperatives is that with every change of government, we start over explaining what cooperatives are. We need to work the most on motivating local power brokers. Education and raising awareness among the local population and politicians about cooperatives is important, emphasized Stanojević.

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Mario Klobučar from Croatian Forests stated that they have not had activities directed towards citizens so far, but they are starting with the production of wood chips and that together with local government, they plan to use that resource effectively.

– The focus will be on citizens, who can help a lot in the whole story. We are trying to launch municipal power plants with the help of citizens and local government. We want to open up as much as possible to citizens and local government, said Klobučar, adding that citizens can contribute to the transparency of operations.

Einstein and Heisenberg

As part of the panel on how to initiate the development of solar energy on market principles, Maja Pokrovac, president of the Renewable Energy Association, emphasized that Croatia needs to be directed towards a renewable Croatia.

– Energy cooperatives urgently need Einstein’s theory of relativity and Heisenberg’s interpretation of the uncertainty principle of space and time translated into models. This is a message for the representative of the Ministry of Environment and Energy who is absent. The Ministry of Environment and Energy must introduce Heisenberg’s uncertainty of space and time in measuring production and consumption, and Einstein’s relativity of speed and implementation of legal and sub-legal acts at the speed of light, noted Pokrovac.

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Mladen Pejnović, former head of the State Office for State Property Management, stated that energy is a market activity and that energy production from renewable sources has become a commercial reality.

– To produce more energy from solar, four steps must be taken: energy strategy, spatial planning, regulation at the state level, and financial front in terms of exports, said Pejnović, adding that the European vision is clean, accessible, and cheap energy.