Today, an international conference by the Municipality of Velenje entitled Welcome, Future 2022 was held in the House of Culture Velenje, which focused on an Action Plan for the transformation of the Šaleška Valley remote system until 2030.
The transition from coal is an important process that will have long-term consequences for the economy and will have a strong impact on the energy sector in our country. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully lay the foundations that will enable this process to be fair. At this year's international conference on the transformation of district heating systems in the EU, they combined the knowledge and strength of various experts to ensure an orderly transition that will be fair for workers, the coal community and citizens.
At the opening of the conference, the selected guests were addressed by the Mayor of the Municipality of Velenje, Peter Dermol, the Minister of Infrastructure, mag. Bojan Kumer, and mag. Aleksander Mervar, the CEO of ELES. In his address, mag. Mervar also emphasized that the case of solving the situation in the Municipality of Velenje will have important implications at the level of the entire Republic of Slovenia and that close cooperation between the power industry and the activity of thermal energy supply is essential. ELES, the Municipality of Velenje and the Municipality of Šoštanj are jointly tackling the challenge of transforming fossil-based heating systems at the local and national level as part of the partnership agreement defined in the framework agreement concluded in 2021.
Mag. Mervar continued on to explain: “We estimate that the increase in heating along with a high growth in the use of small heat pumps and due to the specificity of the operation of heat pumps during the winter period (in the afternoon and evening hours, which will cause an increase in the peak consumption of electricity), will put an even greater burden on the electricity networks, both distribution and transmission, as well as, for example, electro-mobility.”
At the final round table of the hybrid conference mag. Gregor Goričar, CEO’s coordinator for strategies and innovations at ELES, appeared along with prominent experts and during the conversation highlighted the activities of ELES's cooperation with the Municipality of Velenje, the role of scattered sources and the causes behind high energy prices.