Welcome to the Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar. In the next few pages, we wish to present the Institute and familiarise you with our work through projects and studies that we have elaborated, and those that we are currently working on. We believe that it is through our work that we can best present the values and strengths of the Institute.

Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar grew upon a fifty year old tradition of energy sector planning. The Institute directed its development toward the fulfilment of requirements posed before the Republic of Croatia on its way toward becoming a modern state fully integrated into Europe. Both tradition and knowledge have always been respected at the Institute. At the same time, new skills have been built and new scientific methods developed, the Institute’s personnel has been educated and new knowledge acquired. This means that an entire infrastructure, needed to accomplish all tasks and requests posed by the future, had to be built. The Institute’s main challenge lies in the transformation of the Croatian energy system, formerly organised on principles underlying the communist political system, into an open energy market that conforms with the legislative, formal and institutional structures as they are defined by the Directives of the European Union.

Preparation for reform and elaboration of the Energy Sector Development Strategy, in these new circumstances, required the perfection of network and transmission planning methods for all energy forms, capacity building for legal and institutional change within the energy sector, and the initiation of National Energy Programmes which aim to create adequate preconditions for an increase in energy efficiency and a more substantial utilisation of renewable energy sources. Energy system development and the development of various relations within the system itself require new knowledge and capacity for all those involved in the energy sector, including state administration, but also the general public. Education and information dissemination are becoming the Institute’s increasingly significant activities. This process requires continuous training of the Institute’s experts, as well as their active participation in the education of others. The Institute implements its mission in cooperation with numerous scientists and institutions both from Croatia and abroad. As a result, the Institute is ready to undertake a leading role in the field of energy within the entire region.

In Zagreb, 02. July 2004

Director

Goran Granić, Ph.D.