It’s all Šamorín’s fault!
It’s really all the fault of last year’s C4E event in Šamorin, Slovakia. First, the organisers more than surprised me already in the spring with a nomination for the C4E Champion 2023 award.
Apreciation leads to encouragement
Government officials are not used to being praised and singled out for their work. My job at the ministry is to take care of the system of spatial and construction legislation and the preparation of technical regulations. For an outside observer, this is not an attractive job. The results of my work are published in the official gazette of Slovenia, not in some prestigious scientific magazine, at some art event or sports venue. Regulations imply restriction and rules that wave to be obeyed, so they are not popular, even if they improve the standard of living. That’s why no one is patting us on the back. But the organisers of C4E did just that. Uau!
Among the tasks that I have been performing at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning for well over twenty years is the preparation of building regulations in the field of efficient use of energy in buildings. Slovenia (and formerly Yugoslavia) has a long experience with this. The first standard was prepared around 1975, and my first regulation in this area is from 2002. Since then, several were published, and each time the requirements for energy savings became more strict. What is more, the requirements that buildings must provide part of the energy themselves and that these sources must be renewable are increasingly stricter. The last, currently valid regulation is from 2022. Continuity of work on the energy efficiency of buildings and commitment to sustainable construction earned me a nomination for C4E Champion 2023. The certificate for this proudly hangs in my office.
From theory to practice
The C4E Forum in Šamorin has another, perhaps even more important side effect for me. Participating in these meetings of energy enthusiasts from Central and Eastern Europe – I was at the forums in Bulgaria and Romania – encouraged me every time to think about whether we are just talking and prescribing, or whether we are doing ourselves what we want from others. I can proudly say that during the years of work at the ministry, I have gradually updated the house I live in, built in the 1970s. We replaced all the windows, additionally insulated the facade, installed external blinds, additionally insulated the roof, switched from outdated wood-burning stove to a condensing gas boiler and introduced central ventilation with heat recovery.
Then the C4E conference in Šamorin happened! The organisers surprised us with a formal presentation of the nominees and the announcement of the awards in the extraordinary hall at Pezinok Castle. After the ceremony, I got into a conversation with a Slovenian colleague from the ministry of energy, and casually mentioned to him that we are thinking of installing photovoltaic panels on our roof one day, in five or ten years, to produce green electricity. And he answered me: “What? In five years! No way, you must put it on the roof this year, because then the connection conditions will change, and it will be less favourable!” Others who listened to us also agreed that 2023 is indeed the right year for a power plant on the roof. And I didn’t sleep well that night. When I returned home, we had a family consultation and during it I told my family that it would be wise to spend the savings on the solar panels on the roof. The family agreed, and the son immediately contacted a company that supplies and installs rooftop power plants. I was sure that the local energy company would not approve me to connect the photovoltaic device to the public electricity grid, but I was wrong, we got the approval in two weeks. Also, the installation took place a few months earlier than I was expecting. We were lucky that the chosen company could not install a power plant at a certain facility, and they were able to do it on our roof, in the middle of summer. So, the meeting in Šamorin cost me a lot of money, but we are proud owners of our own photovoltaic power plant.
Natural next steps
But this did not end the long trail of the forum in Šamorin. When I was bragging at work about my new roof acquisition, a fellow colleague who works with me wisely remarked: “Now that you generate electricity yourself, you also have to use it, so replace the gas boiler with a heat pump!” And I repeated the process again: the family council, which once again decided to dig into our pockets and invest in a heat pump that started operating in mid-October, just in time – at the beginning of the heating season.
Eko-sklad, a public fund that has been encouraging citizens, companies, and public institutions to use energy more efficiently for more than two decades, is helping financially us and others in Slovenia with both renovations. This way, I will get back part of the funds invested in the self-sufficient power plant on the roof and by switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump. But the applicants in Slovenia are so many that it will be (partly) refunded in the middle of this year.
Our house has been deeply renovated to “nearly zero energy” and we cover all our energy needs with our own environmentally friendly energy production from the roof photovoltaics. We enjoy an excellent indoor environment, with the awareness that we are doing it in a sustainable way. And the C4E forum in Šamorin is to blame for this!
February 2024
About the author:
Saša Galonja is the Head of Construction Division, Spatial Planning, Construction and Housing Directorate at the Slovenian Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning