Croatia bottoms EU solar capacity list
Date: December 12th 2023
Author: Dalibor Dobrić
Category: En.vision
Topic:
Renewables
, Energy policy
Croatia is lagging significantly behind other EU countries in solar installations despite doubling its capacity for producing electricity from this renewable source in the last year, said solar lobby SolarPower Europe in a new report.
According to the European solar power market outlook presented on Tuesday, Croatia remains at the bottom of the EU list, in terms of both installations this year and overall capacity.“Croatia is one of only seven EU member countries operating solar power capacities below the GW mark - Ireland (0.9 GW), Slovakia (0.7 GW), Cyprus (0.6 GW), and Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Latvia (all below 0.5 GW),” the report states.
Croatia had 418 MW of solar capacity connected to the grid at the beginning of November, an increase from 224 MW at the end of 2022, economy ministry data obtained by Montel show.
Local experts predict that the country should achieve 500 MW by the end of the year and 1 GW by 2025. This has been supported by the economy ministry, which told Montel earlier this year that it expects “significant growth” in the number of constructed solar power plants based on the high number of energy approvals it has issued in the first seven months of 2023 alone to projects with a combined capacity of almost 840 MW.
Slovenia tops 1 GW
In the meantime, neighbouring Slovenia surpassed 1 GW and is at 1.3 GW of solar capacity.
The EU installed 55.9 GW in 2023, a 40% increase in new installations compared to 2022, with 14 countries exceeding 1 GW of annual installations in 2023. Total EU solar capacity is now 263 GW, up 27% from 207 GW in 2022, the EU market outlook showed.
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