Geo Power Zagocha to start building Croatia’s second geothermal power plant in summer

Geo Power Zagocha will begin the construction of a 20 MW geothermal power plant in the summer. The system worth EUR 71 million will be located in Čađavica, in Virovitica-Podravina county.

In 2018, Geo Power Zagocha received a license for geothermal exploration for energy production at the Slatina 2 location at a tender launched by the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency. Last year the company initiated the procedure of obtaining approval for the construction of the unit.

The installed capacity of the power plant will be 20 MW, more than the one in Velika Ciglena

The announcement came after the meeting of Dragan Jurilj, owner of the Geo Power Zagocha, Igor Andrović, the representative of the county, and the Mayor of Čađavica Mirko Rončević. The Virovitica-Podravina County said a location permit has been issued.

“After the completion of the geothermal power plant in Velika Ciglena near Bjelovar, we started considering another investment, and we found a location with geothermal potential better than the one in Velika Ciglena,” said Jurilj, adding the implementation of the investment worth EUR 71 million would start in the summer.

The third geothermal plant project in Croatia is in preparation

Geothermal power plant Velika 1 in Velika Ciglena, with an installed capacity of 16.5 MW, was officially opened in November 2019. It is an investment of Dragan Jurilj and Turkey’s MB Holding, which signed a contract two months before that to design another geothermal power plant, Legrad, with an installed capacity of 19.9 MW.

However, in October last year agency issued four more licenses for geothermal exploration, and one of them was for Legrad-1 location, which was previously obtained by MB Holding and is now assigned to Turkey’s Soyak.

Jurilj: Opportunity to use thermal energy for other purposes as well

Dragan Jurilj said the geothermal well and power plant would be an initial investment, and that other economic activity can be added because there is a possibility for secondary use of thermal energy.

“I am the investor, and Geo Power Zagocha is a special purpose company”, he added.

Mayor Mirko Rončević said Čađavica would benefit from large electricity output from renewable sources, while the representative of the county asserted that this is by far the largest investment in the county.