February the 13th, 2023 - Croatian customers are being offered electricity prices with up to 30 percent slashed off the overall cost, representing a more than attractive offer for many during these crisis-filled times.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, after having successfully attracted the first group of users, the company Nano Energies, which deals with optimising the production and consumption of electricity for business users and balancing the network, has started working right here in the Republic of Croatia and aiming its savings towards Croatian residents.

Its first users of all are biogas and biomass plants, which are now part of the company's virtual power plant with almost 20 MW of flexible electricity.

Among the key users is Energija (Energy) Gradec, which, as the largest producer of electricity from biogas plants in the Republic of Croatia, accounts for a fifth of the total domestic production of this type of energy.

Energija Gradec, with its five biogas plants, has a license to produce energy from a total of 9.8 MW of installed capacity, and annually produces around 80,000 MWh of electricity.

As Dominik Maricevic, the country manager of this primarily Czech company explains, Nano Energies can help users reduce their overall energy costs by 10 to 30 percent, without having to transform their daily operations.

"Out users don't even notice our actions because the whole process takes place automatically. For companies that work around the clock and whose energy consumption varies, the cost savings can be even greater," says Maricevic.

The move will certainly be attactive to Croatian customers, be they business owners battling rising costs or otherwise as we continue to try to find a reasonable path through this ongoing energy crisis in which everyone is going to have to tighten their proverbial belts.

For more on the energy crisis, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.

January the 20th, 2023 - The Norwegian company Statkraft has shed light on the scale of Croatian energy bill worries, among other things, in its research. Statkraft is otherwise Europe's largest producer of renewable energy.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the aforementioned Norwegian company conducted a survey among more than 18,000 respondents across nine countries, including the Republic of Croatia, about what consumers think about climate change and the current soaring energy prices.

Overall, at the level of all the countries included in the research, three quarters of respondents are concerned about the negative consequences of climate change and see one of the solutions lying precisely with renewable energy sources. More than two-thirds (69%) believe that the development of renewable energy sources should be a priority given the problems with climate change and energy supplies. Almost a quarter of those surveyed (23%) said that their perception of renewable energy sources has become more positive over the last six months, while the overall rate of acceptance of wind power plants and solar power plants is now at the level of 80 and 87 percent, respectively.

Croatian energy bill worries are the highest, just like they are for the Irish

Of all the countries surveyed, concern about the potentially higher cost of electricity was highest in Ireland (86%) and Croatia (81%). When asked about electricity prices, 81% of people surveyed here in Croatia are concerned about the possible costs of their electricity bills; 62% of the respondents think that they may not be able to cover the expected increase in energy prices with their savings, while as many as 85% think that more and more serious investments in renewable energy sources across Croatia should have been made a very long time ago.

Despite this pressure of rising energy prices that people feel, 50% of respondents in Croatia say that due to other challenges they're dealing with in life, they don't have time to look for more favourable options for supplying electricity.

Respondents in Croatia also showed the greatest concern among all countries regarding the security of an energy supply – 77% of respondents stated that they were concerned about the issue of security of energy supplies. At the same time, 56% of the respondents from Croatia - again the highest percentage among all the surveyed countries - say that they were primarily motivated by the war in Ukraine to take such a view and attitude; 79% of citizens claim that they began to consider the topic of energy in a more significant way only because of this war.

Croatia also leads the way in terms of awareness of sources of electricity – the vast majority of respondents (87%) claim that they know where their energy comes from; this is again the highest percentage in this survey across all of the involved countries.

Arnaud Bellanger, Statkraft's manager for the Republic of Croatia, commented on the survey results in Croatia with the following words: "These survey results show clear public support for the development of clean energy, with people wanting Croatia to act quickly on this. By increasing the production capacity of renewable energy and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, Croatian consumers can be additionally protected from changes on an unstable market which is facing rising costs.''

Croatian residents are aware of the issue of climate change, but mostly they don't know about the initiatives that are trying to solve this pressing problem

Croatian residents are well aware of the issue of climate change, and 75% of respondents in this survey said they were worried about the direct consequences of climate change on them and their families. They're mostly worried about floods, fires, heat waves and a rise in sea levels (48%), the impact on human health (42%), the negative impact on food prices (40%), the impact on human and animal habitats (39%) and the inability to plan for the future because of these dire uncertainties (23%).

However, in this survey, as many as 93% of Croats said that they weren't aware of any specific goals and activities that the country is undertaking to become carbon neutral. Respondents are divided about who should primarily solve the problem: 36% of people say that they don't feel any pressure or incentive to face the problem themselves, while 31% are very aware of it and feel a need to act.

Public support for significant expansion of renewable energy sources

Croatian residents believe that the government should primarily encourage solving the problem of climate change through more policies and incentives to reduce carbon emissions, including incentives for electric vehicles (56% of respondents), the faster introduction of clean energy for personal and business use (46%), the better education of people about how they can reduce their carbon footprint on their own (49%), more incentives for the use of clean energy in companies and industry (59%) and an easier process for planning initiatives that work to fight climate change (42%).

Faced with rising energy prices due to the war in Ukraine and the climate crisis, respondents in Croatia overwhelmingly (75%) said that significant expansion of production capacity in the area of renewable energy sources must become a priority throughout Europe. One third of Croatian respondents - 34% of those surveyed - say that they view renewable energy sources, stimulated by these crises during the past months, much more favourably than they did before.

For more, make sure to check out our news section.

December the 5th, 2022 - Moldova recently spent two hours without electricity owing to the horrendous actions of the Russians in Ukraine. Could Croatian companies easily solve such issues?

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jerko Zlatar writes, Croatia is very much focused on Ukraine's ongoing strife. We only need to look at the debate being had in the Croatian Parliament on the training of Ukrainians, the commendable attempts made by numerous sectors in this country to help with the integration of refugees, and the excellent work of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs at the Crimea Platform and political support for Ukraine. That said, the Republic of Croatia continues to employ a chronically lacking approach when it comes to proactivity with sending humanitarian aid abroad.

The current situation in Ukraine and recently in neighbouring Moldova illustrates the passivity and disorganisation of the process of sending aid, and the involvement of Croatian companies in that process turned out to be minimal and somewhat spontaneous. This has consequences for future exports.

Moldova is currently facing an energy crisis due to the fact that Gazprom has significantly reduced its gas supplies. To make matters worse, the lifeblood of Moldova's electricity supply from the EU is the 400 KV transmission line, which runs from Romania, through Ukraine and the separatist enclave of Transnistria.

Due to the overloading of the system in Odesa Oblast, as a result of Russian missile attacks on the Ukrainian electricity supply system, Moldova was left without electricity for two hours. According to Bloomberg last month, advisory and professional help was sent to by Lithuania and Poland, because the local Energocom employs only seventeen employees.

As for Croatian companies, which could quickly build a new transmission line with appropriate transformer stations, and whose institutes (including HEP) could help a lot in the procurement of electricity - there were no such moves to speak of. The agreement for the new transmission line was signed back in 2017, the value of the project stands at 270 million US dollars. It was also planned to be co-financed by the European Investment Bank with 80 million dollars.

Another example is France, which, in the wake of Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure last week, sent 100 generators with a power of 50 and 100 KVA. In total, 500 generators have been sent to Ukraine through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

However, among the sevetneen EU member states that have sent aid to Ukraine's electric power system, Croatia isn't among them - which produces almost everything needed in this situation, such as transformers, generators and transmission lines, and whose electricity industry has experience in staying up and running during a war.

In an interview with the Ukrainian channel Freedom TV, the head of the regional military-civilian administration of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Hayday, said that the area primarily needs water purifiers and help with demining, areas in which Croatian companies also have something to offer.

Regarding demining, help from Croatian companies has already been offered, but in the Luhansk region, literally everything is lacking, from electricity to windows and building materials. Regarding private initiatives, DOK-ING has already demonstrated its innovative demining and firefighting robots to the President of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefancuk, during a visit to the meeting of the Crimea Platform in Zagreb.

Above all, it is necessary to create the most effective framework for bringing together businesses and the Croatian Government, which would be able to respond in a timely manner to crisis situations across the world, and which could become one of the main promoters of Croatian exports.

The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Croatian Chamber of Commerce would have to be included in that body, as would other stakeholders like the Croatian Employers' Association, in order not to need to wait for EC decisions, but to react immediately and raise Croatia's reputation across the world and actively promote domestic production. 

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated news section.

September the 21st, 2022 - Croatian gas prices are set to be charged at a guaranteed price for some in the country, which will definitely result in a sigh of relief.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, all public service suppliers will have enough gas for households this winter season, emphasised Ivo Milatic, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economy after a meeting with gas suppliers that provide such public services.

About 100,000 people in the country who want to change their gas supplier and connect to the public service can wait for the cold weather to come in a more relaxed frame of mind, because gas from the new supplier should start arriving from October, and it will remain at the same price until April the 1st next year. There will be enough gas for all, but certain technical problems should be expected because a huge number of requests will need to be processed in a very short time.

This encouraging message was delivered by representatives of the Ministry of Economy on the sidelines of the recent Government session, which was chaired by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic recently after he recovered from COVID-19 and came out of isolation, as reported by Novi list.

State intervention

The Zagreb gas plant (GPZO) is under the greatest pressure from people who more than understandably want cheaper Croatian gas prices, a service to which about 70,000 people want to switch. Its director Jeronim Tomas said that the connection of new consumers is expected by October the 1st, with a guaranteed price set in stone. This should not be a problem, but it is important, he warned, to solve the technical difficulties implied.

''People will have to read all of their gas meters by the end of this month,'' Milatic pointed out, adding that everyone who wants to switch from market service to public service must be allowed to do so by October the 1st, 2022. However, he noted, this transition could take longer due to the large number of requests that have come flooding in, so there is a possibility that some time will pass before people begin receiving their first bills with these set Croatian gas prices on them.

"We asked HERA, the gas supplier and distributor, to publicly and clearly explain all this to the public by the end of the week," emphasised Milatic, adding that the suppliers do happen to run out of gas, the state is more than ready to intervene and help them.

"If one of the suppliers does begin to experience a supply problem, HEP Plin (Gas) is a guaranteed supplier and it would once again assume the obligation to supply those same people with gas,'' Milatic assured. The onslaught on public gas suppliers in many Croatian cities occurred after many smaller suppliers on the market could no longer deliver gas to people at more favourable prices.

Recently, the government lowered the price of diesel fuel, which now costs 12.29 per litre, a considerable 59 kuna less than before. Petrol will be being sold for 10.58 kuna, one lipa more, while the price of blue diesel will remain the same, which is 8.49 kuna per litre.

"Since diesel prices on the Mediterranean market dropped significantly on Thursday and Friday, we decided to go with this new regulation, because this reduction in the market will be reflected in the reduction of retail prices here," explained Davor Filipovic, Minister of Economy.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

September the 19th, 2022 - The City of Karlovac near Zagreb will soon be using a new hot water source for its heating needs as worries of energy crises this winter continue to plague many.

As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in the wake of the energy crisis and the fear of what winter is set to bring in terms of heating issues, any investment in renewable energy sources is gaining additional importance, especially if it is a public partnership that will bring people some peace in terms of the price and security of their energy supply.

The most recent example is the City of Karlovac, where, at the end of last week, Geotermika's project was first presented. This company has withdrawn the necessary funds that will enable a significant step in the connection of the Karlovac's heating system to heating from its own geothermal sources.

As the director of Geotermika, Vlatko Kovacic presented the project to the city administration. A massive 5.6 million kuna came to the fore through the "Using geothermal energy for heating purposes in the City of Karlovac" project. The generous donor is the Norwegian fund EEA, and the project partner in addition to the City of Karlovac is ISOR Island.

The share of grants stands at almost 67 percent, while the City of Karlovac will co-finance the project with 1.9 million kuna. "We're starting to create a pilot project with the aim of increasing the capacity for the production and use of thermal energy from geothermal energy in the area of ​​the City of Karlovac. The end goal is to arrange the well work space to house the drilling rig and the pit for production testing of the KAGT-1 well, which will bring Karlovac even closer to increased energy production from geothermal energy and install capacities for the use of energy from said geothermal energy," explained Kovacic.

The introduction of RES will contribute to the security and diversification of the Karlovac's overall energy supply, the share of energy produced from renewable sources will increase and enable the successful transformation of the city into an ecologically sustainable area," stated Kovacic.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

September the 10th, 2022 - The Croatian National Association of Caterers has welcomed the package of economic measures the government has introduced to battle inflation and spiralling energy bills.

As Morski writes, on Thursday, the Croatian National Association of Caterers welcomed the package of measures introduced by the Croatian Government following drastic energy bill increases which, over recent months, have posed a huge amount of danger to the survival of enterprises already exhausted by the dire effects of the global coronavirus pandemic.

This is especially true with those operating within the catering, hospitality and tourism sector, which are mostly micro, small and medium-sized businesses and companies, the aforementioned association's press release notes.

From the government's package of measures, the Croatian National Association of Caterers have singled out the measure of capping the cost of electricity and the measure which seeks to increase the amount of tax-free payments to employees, which, as they pointed out, will enable the continuation of the work of catering and hospitality establishments this winter, as well as contribute to the preservation of jobs.

They have assessed that by limiting the cost of electricity for half-yearly consumption by companies up to 250,000 kWh to 0.53/kWh kuna, which ensures a price 12 times cheaper than the stock exchange price, the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has showcased "a previously unheard of level of understanding and support for micro, small and medium-sized companies which experience the most difficult moments when doing business, and at the same time forms the backbone of the domestic economy."

The Croatian National Association of Caterers has also said that they hope for successful negotiations and equal treatment when it comes to the limiting of the price of gas, which, along with electricity, is an essential energy source in the hospitality industry, especially in the area of ​​continental Croatia in the winter period of the year.

Considering the wide scale and long-term nature of this ongoing and unfolding crisis and limited resources, they're also calling for the implementation of savings measures and the rationalisation of energy consumption in the business and private spheres, as reported by HRT.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

September the 6th, 2022 - Nano Energies Croatia (Hrvatska) has some innovative methods for lowering spiralling electricity costs, which are posing more and more of a threat to everyone in society as the situation continues to be dire.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, the energy sector is going through an extremely turbulent period that is deeply affecting both companies and regular households. Rising energy prices, the war in Ukraine, the need for decarbonisation and the need to digitise everything have made the need to find more innovative and sustainable solutions much, much more urgent. System optimisation, flexible consumption, the general reduction of the human carbon footprint and the reduction of business costs for companies and households are all pressing issues.

An innovative solution has been put forward by Nano Energies Croatia, a daughter company of the group of the same name from the Czech Republic, which is otherwise the first Croatian company to which HERA issued a license to carry out energy aggregation activities. It is a business model of a kind of "energy consulting", i.e. energy management that can save companies 10-20 percent of their electricity costs, and is financed according to the well-known ESCO model.

Ultimately, Nano Energies Croatia plans to offer Croatian users an electricity storage service in the foreseeable future. The service they're bringing to the Croatian market focuses on smart management and the overall flexibility of energy use. In practice, this means that it offers companies and electricity producers the possibility of managing their own consumption and production of electricity in order to reduce their business costs and profit from the movement of electricity prices on short-term markets. At the same time, the flexible management of production and/or consumption benefits the entire power grid and helps prevent interruptions in the supply of individual parts of the grid.

As explained by Dominik Maricevic, the manager of Nano Energies Croatia, given the accelerated decentralisation of the Croatian power system, the activity of aggregation has become an extremely important part of it.

"The unstable production of renewable energy sources has brought a challenge to the management of power systems. Frequency fluctuations within the power grid must be minimised to keep the grid stable. An independent aggregator with its distributed assets can play a key role in smoothing out such fluctuations. Therefore, our task is to create a network of small producers, consumers, as well as electricity storage tanks, so that they can react at any time and "offer" stability to the power system, but at the same time ensure access to profitable balancing energy markets. In this way, we'll manage to both speed up and reduce the costs of the energy transition for Croatian users, and at the same time create the proper preconditions for the connection of new renewable energy sources to the electric power system," explained Maricevic.

Stanislav Chvala, CEO of the Czech technology company Nano Energies, also emphasised that their license to operate on the Croatian market opens up numerous completely new opportunities for them.

"With flexible management, we can increase our customers' income by up to several tens of percent. Experiences from Western markets shows us that flexibility aggregators replace fossil fuel and nuclear power plants and enable the transition to sustainable energy. We can use the potential of the electricity that would otherwise remain unused. We can adjust consumption and production so that the customer produces electricity when it is the most expensive, and consumes it when it's the cheapest. The customer themselves doesn't notice this during operation, because everything takes place automatically, and at the same time contributes to the stabilisation of the network without the need to include coal-fired power plants in balancing the system," said Chvala.

Reconstruction of the network

He added that Europe has already started to rethink and rebuild its overall energy network and it is clear that in the coming years there will be a huge increase in the use of RES.

"Historically, the time when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine was compensated for by gas and coal power plants, but this is an increasingly unsustainable situation for geopolitical reasons, as well as the need to preserve the environment. We have to look elsewhere for flexibility," he concluded.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Made in Croatia section.