Geothermal power plant- Foto: Damir Spehar / Pixsell
Croatia has one of the greatest potentials in the European Union for the use of geothermal energy as a clean, renewable and inexhaustible source of energy.
Due to complicated regulations and high initial investments, geothermal power plants have not fully taken off in Croatia, except in Velika Glinica near Bjelovar, which is the only geothermal power plant in Croatia. However, due to the ever higher prices of energy sources in the world, energy sources that are not affected by global problems are once again in the focus of investors.
Željka Sladović, a geological engineer, pointed out that Croatia could produce about 500 megawatt hours of electricity from geothermal energy, which is approximately equivalent to the energy produced annually by the Krško Nuclear Power Plant, only that, unlike a nuclear power plant, the energy obtained by the geothermal method would be cheaper, more sustainable and good for the environment.
And the green transition is going very slowly, and Croatia will probably not meet the goal outlined in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan to install a new 1,500 megawatts from renewable energy sources by the end of 2024, according to estimates from HGK. Instead of the share of renewable energy sources in total consumption growing, it is falling.
But Zagreb could be heated and bathed in healing geothermal water in the near future, pointed out Željko Jurilj, director of GPC Instrumentation Process.
The plan is to further connect buildings to the geothermal network, such as the Student Dorm in Cvjetni naselje, Boćarski dom, and the Ministry of Health and the National Children’s Hospital have expressed interest, while the Faculty of Kinesiology is already heated with geothermal energy.
This renewable and inexhaustible source of energy today heats and produces electricity for entire cities and countries. Iceland is the best example of how the power of nature can be harnessed, where even 90 percent of the buildings in Reykjavik are connected to the geothermal network. Croatia, on the other hand, apart from the potential in this field, has not done anything serious since the end of the 1970s, when INA started with more extensive oil and gas research.
Transferred from: https://vijesti.hrt.hr/