Croatia aims for 70 MW of electrolyser capacity by 2026
Date: October 18th 2023
Author: Dalibor Dobrić
Category: En.vision
Topic:
Natural gas
, Renewables
, Energy policy
, En.vision
, Hydrogen
Croatia is planning to introduce a state aid programme for hydrogen production in 2024 and achieve 70 MW of electrolyser capacity by 2026, economy ministry state secretary Ivo Milatic told Montel on Tuesday.
Croatia has received EU funding in its national recovery and resilience plan for 12 hydrogen filling stations and 70 MW of electrolyser capacity and the deadline for the use of these funds is August 2026, Milatic said in an interview.A public tender for these projects will be held next year and the locations of the filling stations are yet to be determined. Hydrogen will be used for electricity production and storage, and as a fuel source for shipping and transportation, he said.
He added that more solar plants were needed to provide a power source for hydrogen production and that Croatia was now close to having 600 MW of installed solar capacity.
“There will be a lot of hydrogen production in Croatia, regardless of how futuristic it sounds now,” Milatic said, adding that power production from renewable energy sources had also seemed “futuristic” once.
“That is why all new gas pipelines need to be hydrogen ready,” Milatic told experts gathered at the annual assembly of the Croatian natural gas association Hsup.
Gas grid expansion
Croatia is negotiating an increase in funding from the RePower EU scheme which would allow it to allocate over EUR 700m for the expansion of its gas pipeline system, Milatic said.It aims to increase the capacity of Croatia’s LNG terminal from 2.9bcm to 6.1bcm and expand the capacity of the pipelines connecting it to Slovenia and Hungary. It also intends to construct a 70-kilometre-long pipeline in the south of the country which would connect the Croatian gas transmission system to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Milatic told Montel that this pipeline would be the first part of the planned Ionian-Adriatic Pipeline (IAP) as well as the first official interconnection with BiH and would bring natural gas to large industrial consumers in the south of that neighbouring country.
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