Photo: Balkan Green Energy News
In four weeks, Belgrade Energy Forum 2024 will welcome some of the most influential names in the energy sector in the region and Europe. Among the new sponsors are companies and financial institutions currently the most ambitious and prepared in the market. The governments in the region can count on them to conduct the energy transition.
The leaders of the energy transition in Southeast Europe are convening on May 13 and 14 in Crowne Plaza in Serbia’s capital city.
Belgrade Energy Forum 2024, the most relevant multistakeholder event of its kind in the region, is an opportunity to hear from energy ministers, chiefs of international organizations, and the leading companies in the energy sector about the new trends, challenges, and possible solutions. Belgrade Energy Forum and Balkan Green Energy News portal represent a media and event platform for matching future partners in the growing sustainable energy sector.
The conference will feature leading investment companies and developers that are currently developing more than 20 GW of green capacities across the region, as well as the heads of Serbian power exchange SEEPEX – Miloš Mladenović, Slovenian BSP Energy Exchange – Anže Predovnik, and Hungarian HUPX Mátyás Vajta. The three exchanges were recently integrated into a regional Adex Group.
The companies currently negotiating with the governments in the region on establishing strategic partnerships, an emerging model for the development of capital energy projects in the region, will also be at the BEF 2024 conference.
Renewable energy developers participating in the conference have a combined project pipeline of more than 20 GW
The conference’s agenda is ready and available on the conference website. According to the organizers, the conference will be opened by Energy Community Secretariat Director Artur Lorkowski. The confirmation of the participation of Dubravka Djedović Handanović, Minister of mining and energy, is still pending and is expected in the first days of May when the new Government is expected to be appointed
Minister of Energy and Mining of Montenegro Saša Mujović will speak at the panel on strategies for advancing energy transition in SEE. It will be the first time the newly elected minister will speak at a conference in Serbia. Mujović is participating in the discussion with his peers from the Republic of Srpska and Romania, Dirk Buschle from the Energy Community Secretariat, and Gurbuz Gonul, an executive from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
What should we do to secure a timely and meaningful carbon-neutral future? is the name of a panel in which WindEurope’s Chief Executive Officer Giles Dickson will participate.
He will discuss the topic with Alexandra Sombsthay, vice president for Europe in French company Akuo Energy and Vice President of SolarPower Europe; Vugar Veysalov, from the company Trans Adriatic Pipeline, who is responsible for external affairs and social and environmental investment; and Daniel Calderon, Managing Director of Alcazar Energy.
An Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. – Masdar representative will also speak at the panel. Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates and active in Southeast Europe through a joint venture with Masdar Taaleri. It won a market premium in August for its Čibuk 2 project in Serbia at the country’s first wind power auction. In addition, Masdar is preparing to invest in green energy with Romanian state-owned company Hidroelectrica under a joint venture partnership.
Significant interest in panel on energy storage, batteries
The UGT Renewables and Hyundai Engineering consortium is the event’s diamond sponsor. It is negotiating with the Government of Serbia on the biggest strategic partnership in the region. The two companies are set to install a group of solar power plants of 1 GW in total connection capacity, with batteries that would have at least 200 MW in operating power.
This year’s important topic will also be energy storage solutions and batteries as possible solutions to provide smooth integration of variable renewable energy sources.
The panel dedicated to batteries topic will include the most relevant names in the segment in the region such as the Director of Rimac Energy Wasim Sarwar Dilov, Thalia Valkouma, CEO of Faria Renewables, one of the winners at a battery storage auction in Greece, and Bojan Bogdanović from the EBRD, who will speak about the development of power-to-heat storage capacities.
As the technology sponsor this year, NGEN from Slovenia will attend the conference. Its Co-founder and CEO, Roman Bernard, will speak on the panel about batteries and the challenges and solutions in transmission networks. The energy system solutions provider is installing some of the biggest battery energy storage systems (BESS) in Southeast Europe and beyond.
The company enables automatic leveraging of periods of low electricity prices. It enables greater potential savings than with standard supplier offerings, it stressed. NGEN’s software also automatizes participation in the electricity market.
Silver sponsor Janom Investments entered the Croatian market this year via a solar park project. The firm is preparing to expand around the Western Balkans and is seeking new employees. Director of Janom Energy & Battery Matej Šanta is scheduled to speak on the panel on accelerating energy storage investments in the region.
Golden Hitachi Energy, WV-International, Serbian industrial producers
Hitachi Energy, one of Belgrade Energy Forum’s gold sponsors, is active in the region through its Balkan Cluster. Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland, the company provides groundbreaking technologies and enables a digital transformation necessary to accelerate the energy transition toward a carbon-neutral future.
Hitachi Energy is sponsoring a party in the Remiks club in Belgrade on Monday evening, May 13. It will be another excellent networking opportunity for the conference participants.
On May 14, the conference participants will hear from Neda Lazendić who will represent WV-International. The gold sponsor of the conference is a well-known development company with project of 800 MW of wind power projects and 80 MW of solar.
Large industrial producers Lafarge Srbija, Metalfer Group, Messer Tehnogas and Elixir Group are coming to the conference as gold sponsors as well. The chiefs of the four companies will participate in a panel discussion on the decarbonization of the industry and business operations in response to the Green Agenda and the European Union’s carbon dioxide emissions tax, introduced through the CBAM cross-border mechanism.
They will speak about the state of the industry affected by CBAM and their plans to decarbonize operations but also what should be the role of government in enabling the companies, as the drivers of the Serbian economy, lower their emissions through a new investment cycle, remain efficient and competitive and, most importantly, survive in a market with new rules.
Information and communications technology solutions provider Unicorn has joined the group of silver sponsors of BEF 2024. Within its portfolio, the company offers software for the optimization of flexibility resources both on the consumption side and in electricity production.
Managing Director of Production Stream Miroslav Hašek will present Unicorn’s digital solutions for energy trading at the event.
Masdar joins silver sponsors
In addition, Balkan Green Energy News is welcoming Masdar and Green for Growth Fund (GGF) to the silver sponsorship segment. It also includes CWP Europe, law firm CMS, the Alcazar Energy fund and ProCredit Bank.
“GGF, advised by Finance in Motion, is actively combating climate change by investing in energy projects – such as wind and solar – and implementing measures to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Our partnership with the Belgrade Energy Forum underscores our joint commitment to drive the green transition and promote clean energy in Serbia and the Western Balkan region,” said Fund Director of the Green for Growth Fund Borislav Kostadinov.
He and his team were recently honored with the prestigious Market Pioneer Award Europe at the Infrastructure Journal Global Awards for Blue 1 in Albania – the first utility-scale solar power project in the Balkans to be realized without government subsidies. Kostadinov is scheduled to hold a keynote speech at the panel on the timely and meaningful carbon-neutral future.
New friends of the conference are Ernst & Young, one of the world’s Big Four accounting firms, EFT and state-owned power utilities of Serbia – Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS), and Montenegro – Elektroprivreda Crne Gore (EPCG). MFG, Lugos Renewables and the aforementioned Faria Renewables make up the rest of the group.
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