Croatia raises 2030 renewables target to 42.5%

Croatia increased all the most important targets in its updated National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021-2030. The share of renewable energy sources in energy consumption grew from 36.4% to 42.5%.

European Union member states are obligated to produce national energy and climate plans (NECPs) that set the main goals for the two segments and include measures to achieve them.

Governments were supposed to submit their draft updates last summer. The European Commission approved the original NECPs in 2019. The deadline to submit the final updated documents was June 30 of this year.

Croatia has now completed the final version and launched a public debate.

The reason for the NECP update is to straighten out EU climate ambitions

The main reasons for the update are the increase of EU climate ambitions for the period through 2030 and the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the document’s authors noted.

According to the draft NECP update, Croatia has adopted more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency.

The target for reducing greenhouse gasses from the 2005 level in the sectors under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) was bolstered from 43% to at least 62%. The goal for sectors outside the ETS was at least 7% in the previous version, and now it is projected at 16.7%.

Croatia intends to further reduce electricity consumption

The desired share of renewable energy in gross energy consumption is 42.5% or 6.1 percentage points above the previous target. The target for the share of renewables in transport was almost doubled – from 13.2% to 24.6%.

The primary energy consumption target for the year 2030 was cut from 344.38 to 336.9 petajoules, compared to the reduction in projected direct energy consumption from 286.91 to 246.2 petajoules. It means Croatia intends to save more energy through energy efficiency measures, according to the final updated NECP.

Of note, three weeks ago the Croatian Energy Market Operator (HROTE) launched a procedure for granting feed-in tariffs for electricity generated from renewable energy sources.

Under a previous public call this year, HROTE has awarded premiums for solar and hydropower plants with a total capacity of 420 MW.