The Fourth International Congress on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources (RES) for Southeast Europe opened in Sofia on Monday. It will be held over three days, with an international exhibition of RES technologies on the sidelines, BTA reported.

Improving energy efficiency is a tool for increasing the security of supplies, saving energy and protecting the environment, Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said in a statement read out to the participants. Cooperation in the energy industry will be one of the five priority areas of the Regional Co-operation Council for South Eastern Europe, Kalfin said.

Electricity supply in the region ran into difficulties after Units Three and Four of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant were shut down at the end of 2006, Kalfin wrote in his address. He called on the EU to initiate an energy community with Southeastern Europe, which would take steps to deal with the difficulties.

Bulgaria has taken active steps for a regional energy information centre to be set up in Sofia as part of the Energy Community's Secretariat, as well as for opening an office of the Energy Community's Observatory.

The Operational Programme Competitiveness allocates 205 million euro for measures for energy sector development and increased energy efficiency between 2007 and 2013, Deputy Economy and
Energy Minister Nina Radeva said in her address. Two grant schemes worth a total of 31 million euro will be launched in the second half of the year.

In an address read out at the forum, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs noted its crucial importance for the exchange of experience and better cooperation in the energy industry. The German Minister for Environment and Nuclear Safety, Sigmar Gabriel, also addressed the forum.

A long-term energy strategy for the next 30 to 50 years should be drafted and approved. It should take into account Bulgaria's natural conditions, energy requirements, environmental
protection and international commitments, the Union of Physicists said in a letter to BTA about the development of the energy industry.

The Union singled out photovoltaic energy sources as a promising field. Coal fired power stations will continue to be most widely used in the short term, which will require strict policies regarding harmful emissions, the scientists said.

Nuclear energy will be central to Bulgaria in the next 50 years, the physicists said. The Union is proposing to analyse the current condition of the energy sector and to draft a strategy. The scientists support the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant, as well as a possible addition of new units to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.

Milko Kovachev, former energy minister and current adviser at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), said there is a huge potential in Southeastern Europe to increase energy efficiency and to use RES.

The energy-intensiveness of the Balkan economies is at least 50 per cent higher than in the 15 older member states of the EU, and in some sectors the energy-intensiveness is even 100 per
cent higher, Kovachev said. Energy efficiency in Bulgaria should increase 30 to 50 per cent so that the country's economy is competitive on the European market, he said.

According to Kovachev, the EBRD has so far invested 346.8 million euro in projects in Bulgaria. The amount for the Balkans 453.4 million euro. In the framework of the EBRD's sustainable energy initiative for Southeast Europe, in the period between 2006 and 2008 the investments total 1,700 million euro.