Energy market operator of Croatia, Hrvatski Operator Tržišta Energije (HROTE) has opened a competitive auction round to allocate a total of 622 MW of new renewable energy capacity, comprising 300 MW of solar energy projects of larger than 500 kW.
According to the tender round, it seeks to award 300 MW of wind, 8 MW biomass and biogas, 4 MW small hydropower and 10 MW of geothermal power plant capacity to the winners to encourage new installations. Projects using innovative technologies funded by the European Union (EU) are also eligible to participate.
Winning projects will be awarded a market premium for 12 years, which is defined as the difference between the contracted reference value and market price of electricity.
For solar PV projects, tariffs are capped at HRK 495.63 ($72.25) per MWh, while for wind energy projects it is HRK 460.91 ($67.2) per MWh.
HROTE estimates this entire 622 MW capacity, once online, to generate about 1.5 TWh of electricity annually.
Details of the tender conditions are available on HROTE's website.
In February 2022, local media reported that the Croatian Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development planned to launch an auction for large scale solar and wind energy plants in Q3/2022 (see Europe PV News Snippets). The Croation tender comes close after another Eastern European country, Romania announced a renewables tender end of March, with its Energy Minister Virgil Popescu saying that such 'investments means long-term solutions for the energy security of our country' (see Romania's 950 MW Renewables Tender).