In the next period, we should continue with investments in photovoltaics, but we should also focus on investments in batteries and work on simplifying the regulation for installing batteries, he pointed out. Marko Bislimoski, President of the Regulatory Commission for Energy and Water Services at the 14th Business Forum “Energy Present and Future”, which was held tonight in the organization of the Rotary Club Skopje – Centar.

“All investments are directed towards renewable energy sources and this should continue, but we need base energy. At the moment we provide base energy from coal-fired thermal power plants and we have to be realistic about their lifespan because we can’t expect pensioners to run a marathon – that’s impossible. And no one will give us finance to invest in new thermal power plants, but what we need to do is to provide natural gas for the production of electricity, and it should be our base energy,” said Bislimoski.

As he pointed out, due to the enormous prices on the stock market of electricity and natural gas – energy has become a topic and now is a great opportunity for everyone to direct energy and invest in what has not been invested in 30 years.

“Without energy there is no economy, without economy there is no country. When I talk about energy in the last 30 years, the private sector, unlike the state, invested more. Since the middle of last year, when the prices of electricity and gas increased extremely, energy became the main topic, and until then all problems were put under the carpet. All the investments that are announced will be realized and will contribute to increasing energy independence, which is great. But the citizens need electricity now. In the past we witnessed cheap populism – for price stability and absence of investments. Today, the time has come when all those non-investments will pay off. “If there had been investment in the last 30 years, we would have become exporters from being import-dependent,” said Bislimoski.