12.02.2023.
A 2-day International Summit on Renewable Energy (INSORE 2023) was held in Dubrovnik, organised by the Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb in cooperation with North East Renewable Energy Lab from India. Along with other notable figures, the opening ceremony was attended by Luka Balen, the director of the Fund, and Mario Šiljeg, state secretary at the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, who is also the president of the Fund’s Management Board.At the summit, scientists from 20 countries discussed the energy sector, the use of renewable energy sources in agriculture, and food self-sufficiency and security.
“The aim of the European Commission is to establish a sustainable economy, and the intention is for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The transformation of the energy sector, in which renewable energy sources play a key, role is Croatia’s strategic interest. The Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development has provided generous funding through the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund to co-finance projects that promote green energy production,” said state secretary Šiljeg.
The minister of agriculture, Marija Vučković, mentioned the importance of linking the food industry with new initiatives in the EU’s Bioeconomy Development Strategy. She reminded the participants that thus far, under the Rural Development Programme, 324 projects for the use of RES in the primary agricultural production were contracted.
The summit was officially opened by the delegate of the Croatian Parliament and president of the Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture Marijana Petir, who said that every country that was safeguarding its sovereignty was also safeguarding its food production. “It is vital to increase the production and use of renewable energy sources in agriculture. In this way, we will increase the number of “green” jobs in the rural sector, reduce poverty, and achieve our climate goals ,” added Petir.
The special guest of the summit was India’s Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia, His Excellency Raj Kumar Srivastava, who pointed out that India, which has 1.4 billion inhabitants whose median age is 29, was developing while carefully considering the trends over the next 25 years. “Our progress must heed climate challenges and carbon footprint and must not have such devastating impacts as in many other developing countries. We are learning from the experiences of other countries, so that we do not go down the same path that has created so many problems for our planet. If we don’t learn on our own, nature will find the way to teach us the hard way,” said Raj Kumar Srivastava.
The dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Ivica Kisić, said that the aim of the summit was to present and discuss possible solutions for the implementation of climate-acceptable innovations, RES technologies and agricultural solutions in practice. In thematic panels, special attention was paid to sustainable development policies, implementation of green innovations, and new challenges in food security and self-sufficiency.
In the panel on the implementation of green technologies, the head of the Energy Efficiency Sector at the Fund, Maja Rajčić, pointed out that the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund was continuously promoting the use of renewable energy systems. “Last year, we had two co-financing schemes – one for legal persons worth 13.2 million euro, and the other one for citizens with the total available budget of 12.6 million euro. Interest in these programmes is always high, so we will continue with these co-financing schemes in the upcoming period.” Along with RES, the call for proposals for financing R&D and innovation projects is ongoing, aimed at supporting research in the field of clean energy and low-carbon technology, also including emissions reduction in the agriculture and forestry sectors.
