Cindrigo to build 20 MW geothermal power plant in Croatia

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Cindrigo to build 20 MW geothermal power plant in Croatia

Date: June 24^th 2022

Author: Montel

Category: En.vision

Topic: Electricity , Renewables , Heating

Renewable energy developer Cindrigo will acquire a 90% interest in Croatia’s EES Dravacel Energetika to develop a 20 MW geothermal power plant in the Virovitica–Podravina County, the UK-based company said in a press release.

EES Dravacel Energetika holds a geothermal exploration licence for 57,926 m² in northern Croatia near the town of Slatina, and it expects the geothermal power plant to become operational in two years, the company’s director Marijan Mikulic told Montel in an e-mailed statement on Friday.

According to Cindrigo’s press release from earlier this month, Dravacel has prepared formal requests for all permits necessary to obtain the right to implement a drilling programme to access the geothermal heat resource, but Mikulic did not disclose when these permits are expected.

“This marks an important step towards achieving our target of securing our first step of 200 MW contractual geothermal projects within 2023”, said Lars Guldstrand, the CEO of the UK developer Cindrigo, in a press release on the acquisition. He added that Croatia is a country with “boundless geothermal opportunities.”

The country’s geothermal potential is around 500 MW at locations that are known to have geothermal water for energy purposes, according to the Croatian energy development strategy up to 2030.

Mikulic told Montel that at the moment EES Dravacel Energetika has a partnership agreement with Cindrigo Geothermal for the first phase that includes a geothermal plant with a capacity of 20 MW, and the development of additional capacity will be worked out later.

The UK developer has an active growth strategy that aims for up to 450 MW in geothermal projects by 2025 and 1,000 MW by 2030. Cindrigo has not mentioned how much of this capacity will be in Croatia, but noted that it is also interested in projects in “other strong geothermal regions of the Pannonian Basin.”

Currently, Croatia has one geothermal power plant, the 16.5 MW Velika 1 near the town of Bjelovar that has been operational since 2019.

Croatian company Geo Power Zagocha expressed interest in obtaining an energy approval from the economy ministry in January for a geothermal power plant with a capacity of 20 MW in Virovitica–Podravina County.