Electric power in the future of Slovenia's energy policy

In the current issue of the National Geographic Slovenija, which covers a wide range of sciences, our associate, Mag. Leon Valenčič, the head of the Energy and Power System Planning Department explained the forecasts for future electric power consumption in the section, entitled »Krško Nuclear Power Plant operating with full capacity and only covering one fifth of Slovenia’s need for electric power«. He mentioned that consumption has doubled in Slovenia in the past 40 years despite two major crises, i.e. the transition crisis at the beginning of the 1990s and the global crisis in 2008. Mag. Valenčič mentioned that »future growth forecast would be lower if the political sphere would not determine that transport and heating must also be electricity powered. Therefore, we can expect an even greater growth in demand.« The Krško Nuclear Power Plant will continue operating until 2043 and the Šoštanj Thermal Power Plant will be closed in 2053 at the latest. What will we use to compensate for the outage? We know that according to solar energy production, Slovenia belongs to the last third of the EU countries. »Solar panels and windmills are not a real alternative,« said Mag. Valenčič without compromise, and added: »Wind is unreliable and in winter when the demands for electricity are the highest, there is almost no sun. We will not be able to store summer surpluses for bad times.« What about hydro power plants? »We do not have the options to build many new ones. We also know that it is a demanding task to integrate them in the environment,« concluded Mag. Valenčič. What is Slovenia's energy policy for the future? Energy transition is becoming quite a challenge, especially if we do not want to increase our energy dependency on foreign countries.