site.btaDay Two of Green Transition Forum 4.0 in Sofia

The fourth edition of the Green Transition Forum - Green Transition Forum 4.0, is taking place between June 26 and June 28 in Sofia. Dir.bg and 3E News are organizers of the event while the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) is a media partner.

For the countries from the region of Central and Eastern Europe, Green Transition Forum 4.0 serves as a platform for discussing the European Green Deal.

Here are key takeaways from the speakers on the second day of the forum, which brought together more than 2,500 participants, including more than 750 executives from 18 countries:

Honorary Director of the European Commission Giorgos Kremlis said that Greece is developing a very important project to bring green electricity produced by wind and solar in Egypt to Europe. Kremlis focused on the approaches to enhancing Central and Eastern European competitiveness through sustainable green transition and pointed to the connectivity issues in the region, in particular. He stressed the need for infrastructure in Eastern Europe, which is lagging behind compared to older EU member states. Kremlis said that it is important to build trans-European networks (TENs) for energy, transport, telecommunications and have new "green, circular TENs". He referred to the circular economy as "an emblematic economic model that we need to promote if we want to save our planet," adding that it is "also a priority of the taxonomy regulation for any green financing".

In a video message, Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Chairperson of Jordan's Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies (RIIFS), said that tackling climate change and attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are inextricably intertwined: SDG 7 calls for affordable and clean energy, whereas SDG 17 is about partnerships for the goals. The Prince pointed out that deliberate disasters refer to the results of wars between states or civil wars, guerrilla warfare and insurgency. As examples, he cited Gaza, Sudan and Yemen which, together with Egypt and Syria, belong technically, geopolitically or geostrategically to the Mediterranean and are part of the comprehensive efforts to stabilize the Red Sea region from Anatolia all the way to Madagascar. In the Prince's words, accidental disasters are industrial and nuclear catastrophes. In the context of the ongoing tensions among countries in the region, any nuclear warhead or, God forbid, biological or chemical warhead dropped on a neighbouring country may lead to a circular error probable triggering a destruction scenario.

Moldova's Energy Minister Victor Parlicov sees both peculiarities and common principles in the region. In his words, everybody talks about the energy transition from the point of view of renewable energy, with a focus above all on electricity. Electricity, however, takes up a relatively small part, the Moldovan Minister said, specifying that in his country electricity accounts for 13% of the energy balance, compared to 50% for heat. Hence, heat decarbonization must take a more prominent position in the green transition debate. Parlicov compared the issue to the proverbial elephant in the room. In his words, decarbonization of heating, and above all of district heating systems, is missing from the discussion and must be included.

Romanian Energy Minister Sebastian Burduja believes that the long-term solution is nuclear power. According to Burduja, there may be other types of energy, but the main thing should be the development of nuclear energy, as well as investments in batteries for energy storage. In the short to medium term, Romania has turned to natural gas production and expectations are that by 2027, the country will produce more than it needs.

Bulgarian Caretaker Deputy Energy Minister Iva Petrova said that in recent months her Ministry's teams came up with a draft of a Strategy for Sustainable Energy Development and an updated National Energy and Climate Plan. The two documents were developed with the contribution of various stakeholders and reflect the heightened ambitions within the framework of the Green Package and the specific recommendations to Bulgaria. The Strategy targets maximizing the potential of renewable energy sources with the gradual introduction of flexible energy production capacities and the phasing out of fossil fuels, Petrova said. The models with the Strategy and the updated Plan call for nearly treble increase of renewable energy sources, new nuclear capacities to be commissioned by 2035-2040, and new pumped-storage hydroelectric power plants in the system, she added.

Chamber of Energy Communities in Bulgaria Executive Director Elenko Bozhkov said that the options for setting up an energy community have already been legislated. "As household consumers, we use 12 million MWh, but we are capable of producing 14 million MWh from 90 million sq m of rooftop photovoltaics countrywide," he specified.

Union of the Electricity Industry (Eurelectric) Secretary General Kristian Ruby said that the Green Deal does not slow down even after the early-June European Parliament elections. Legislation is in progress, and there is a search for clear technologies. Arguably, not everything is seamless, but the Green Deal is obviously making headway, and reaching the planned target is a matter of time. This year, the share of clean energy in the energy mix so far adds up to 74%, of which renewables contribute 51% and the rest comes from nuclear power, Ruby pointed out.

Brussels Energy Club Director Nadezda Kokotovic highlighted the grid problems in the Western Balkans. She noted that on Friday Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina experienced a 34-hour-long power cut. "The transmission network operators were overloaded, it was very hot, but anybody who knows the region is aware that the reasons are deeper and are of a systemic nature. There is no planning of what will happen in the near future," Kokotovic said.

Bozidar Dedus, Co-Founder of the Croatian Association for Development and Application of Hydrogen Fuel Cells, shared Croatia’s experience. Solar power is a green energy source and is currently employed to balance the energy system. Unfortunately, wind is not used to a sufficient extent. Geothermal energy sources are being explored, and nuclear capacities are available, too, he pointed out. In his words, for some time now Croatia has been asserting itself ever more as a part of the backbone of the European energy system.

Franck Neel, Member of the Executive Board of OMV Petrom, Romania, said that his company wants to be an energy transition pioneer in Southeastern Europe. "We are implementing renewable energy projects and transport decarbonization projects," he said, adding that OMV Petrom targets exploiting new gas fields in the region, which is crucial for the coal-to-gas switch. Romania has exploitable offshore fields and Bulgaria has explorable offshore fields, he pointed out. His company is planning to increase the number of its electric vehicle charging stations to 5,000.

Kurt Vandenberghe, Director General of the European Commission's Directorate-General Climate Action said that the success of the Green Transition is existentially important for the world, most of all for Europe. Vanderberghe pointed out that the whole world is striving to achieve climate neutrality. He added that the green transition is important not only for environmental reasons, but for economic growth, security and social cohesion. The one third of economic growth in Europe is connected to renewable energy, if this proportion increases, the economics will also grow, he said. In Vanderberghe’s words, the European economy must be prepared for more competitive and less secure future.

Angelin Tsachev, CEO of Bulgaria’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) said that the Bulgarian electricity system is in a very good condition and has a significant capacity for energy transmission, but more efforts need to be made to develop it. No one expected that renewable energy projects would develop so fast - they are outpacing the development opportunities of the electricity transmission grid. Without the development of transmission and distribution networks, there can be no change in the energy mix, Tsachev said. Grid development was underestimated until recently, a lot of money was directed to new generation capacities, but without a developed grid we cannot take advantage of new technologies and see the effect of these technologies, Tsachev said.

Kiril Ravnachki, CEO of Bulgartransgaz EAD (Bulgaria’s state-owned gas transmission operator) told the forum that the goal of energy suppliers is to have a secure supply of sustainable energy at affordable prices. A balanced energy mix and a sustainable infrastructure are needed to have secure supplies for different types of customers, Ravnachki added. Natural gas plays an important role in balancing the energy mix. The company is actively developing the gas transmission network, and there are expansion projects for neighbouring countries as well as for certain territories in Bulgaria.

Teodora Georgieva, CEO of the independent transmission operator ICGB, pointed out that one billion cubic metres of Azeri gas passes through the company, with the infrastructure allowing the transmission of 3.3 billion cubic metres.

Ivan Velev, portfolio manager of ACT Commodities, said their company has been working here for five years. “We suggest the Bulgarian authorities to broaden the scope of the guarantees of origin of energy, not to limit them only to renewable energy sources, but also to nuclear energy,” Velev said, adding that Bulgaria does not have such a product, but other countries with nuclear reactors do.

Petar Fildishev, Head of Gas Trading and Operations at MET Energy Trading Bulgaria, said that energy efficiency is based on three things - maximum use of any energy generated, minimum losses in energy transport and consistency between production and consumption.

Svetoslav Benchev, Chair of the Board of the Bulgarian Petroleum and Gas Association warned that the end of oil is not so close yet. “We have never opposed the green transition. However, we see that all things are being done rather quickly, without the industry, and this gives people the impression that money is being given without result. The world is much less interested in the Green Transition. The EU has reduced the number of refineries from 110 to just over 80, while other economies of the world have kept them,” he added.

Anton Ivanov, Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Energy and Mining Forum, said nuclear power is the only energy source that has proven itself over time. He said nuclear energy is a baseload capacity.

Petyo Ivanov, Executive Director of Kozloduy - New Capacities NPP, commented that in terms of the implementation of Units 7 and 8 of the nuclear power plant, Bulgaria's project is at the most advanced stage of all similar projects in Europe. From a licensing point of view, Bulgaria has an approved site from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. There is also an Environmental Impact Assessment which has come into force for Unit 7. The procedure for Unit 8 is also underway.

Joe Philipsz, Senior CEE Investment and Infrastructure Expert and Chair of SFT, believes that true decarbonization cannot be achieved without nuclear power. Furthermore, nuclear power provides long-term employment. The problem with it is how safety is perceived in the sector. In his view, nuclear power is already linked to decarbonization and the public needs to be convinced of its benefits.

Prof. Georgi Kaschiev, chief expert at Kozloduy NPP (2021-2024), pointed out that since the turn of the century there has been stagnation in the nuclear sector. According to Kaschiev, the reason for this is that new projects with a large capacity of more than 1,000 megawatts are very complicated to implement, very complex and therefore their construction is hard.