Europe | October 20, 2022

Transformers Magazine’s Industry Navigator Conference 2022 has started

Transformers Magazine's Industry Navigator Conference 2022, Sustainability – outlook for the transformer industry has started.

 

Christina Iosifidou, Head of Sustainability for Grid Technologies

Speaker: Christina Iosifidou, Head of Sustainability for Grid Technologies, Siemens Energy

Croatia, Zagreb: Transformers Magazine’s Industry Navigator Conference 2022, Sustainability – outlook for the transformer industry has started with the opening speech by Dr Mladen Banovic.

Dear colleagues, partners, guests, dear friends

Today, I feel privileged to welcome you all at our second Transformers Magazine’s Industry Navigator Conference here in Zagreb, Croatia, whether you are attending the conference in-person or online.

This event is focused on ‘Sustainability – outlook for the transformer industry’, and its relevance reflects through the fact that it is supported by 16 companies, which are leading the industry in their fields: utilities, transformer producers and suppliers of transformer materials and components. So, this is truly our joint event and my words are maybe not enough to express our gratitude to these companies, but anyhow, I’m going to say a big thank for your precious support in the organisation of this event.

Our Champions of sustainability are:

  • ThyssenKrupp
  • Hitachi Energy
  • SGB-SMIT
  • Ergon

Our Partners are:

  • EDF
  • Terna
  • Cargill
  • Micafluid
  • Siemens Energy
  • Končar

Our Sponsors are:

  • Nynas
  • Dynamic Ratings
  • Midel
  • PTTX
  • Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen
  • Coiltech

Then, big thanks go to our speakers and authors. We have 22 authors, and they’ve spent a lot of time on studying this subject, and on preparation of the materials that they are going to present today and tomorrow. Please, give a warm applause for all our speakers.

Thank to all of you who decided to come to the conference in-person to listen, network and have fun.

Also, thank to our online attendees who are watching this session live, as well as to all those who will come later and watch the conference on-demand.

Then, we have people who had a significant role in the preparation of all materials and everything that was necessary for the conference, but they remained, so to say, invisible. They are not listed as authors, they are not present here, so they will be our hidden stars. Big thanks to them.

And last but not least, a big, big “thank you” to my team: Adrijana, Barbara, Lidija and Ante. Thank you for your care and dedicated work, without which this conference would not be possible.

Now, let me say something about the conference and why sustainability matters. When we got the idea for this event, we who were involved in the organisation shared the opinion that it is necessary, and that its importance goes much beyond this group of people, based on the experiences from the practice, as well as on the TM’s IN research that we conducted last year. A section of that research was on sustainability. We found out that there are significant differences in views on sustainability, especially differences among the value chain: utilities as transformer users have their views and priorities, transformer manufacturers have their views, material and components suppliers have their priorities, etc. On the one hand, it is reasonable and understandable that it is so, but at the same time, it is necessary that we better understand each other.

Also, it is interesting that I came across a research on googled questions lately. Among the questions on sustainability, the most googled one is: ‘what is sustainability?’. 58,000 people ask google this question every month. What can this tell us? Obviously, there are many people around, in different industries asking what sustainability is.

All this defines the purpose of this conference, and it is:

  • letting everyone present their views, ideas, and solutions
  • listening to each other
  • discussing topics where we have different opinions
  • and by doing all this, to improve understanding
  • and identify best ways for improving sustainability in our industry.

Let’s see how we will do this.

Within our plenary program, we have 20 presentations for today and tomorrow, where our speakers will present from different angles what is most important for them in terms of sustainability. So, this is a great chance that we hear each other and better understand each other.

Presentations are organized in slots, and at the end of each slot we will have a Q&A section.

Today, at the end of the plenary program we will have a panel discussion with 6 panellist, so we will have a chance to dig deeper into some aspects of sustainability.

Apart from the plenary program, the conference gives us a great opportunity to meet people who are responsible for sustainability in their companies. Use this opportunity for networking and one-to-one discussions.

The last but not least, tonight we will have a social program, where we will relax, enjoy and learn something beyond transformers and business.

In the end, I hope we will learn something new during these two days, so when we come back to our work next week, we can be better in what we are doing.

After the conference, we will conduct a research on sustainability in order to get the feedback from the industry about the ideas presented here. Stay tuned, and you will get informed about it.

Thank you once again and let’s start with the conference.