Croatia's battery storage boom has run up against a planning framework from the government in Zagreb that has not kept pace with the market. "The National Energy and Climate Plan envisaged around 350 megawatts of storage capacity by 2030, but the data show we have already approved over 1,000 megawatts of battery storage capacity," said Helena Pokos, Director for Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Eon. Eon receives daily enquiries for on-site storage, primarily from energy-intensive customers. In her view, the trend will only intensify and warrants a fresh revision of the government plan, which was itself updated only last year.
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More strategic planning for storage
Behind this gap between plan and market lie structural hurdles, above all in the permitting process. Branimir Ivković, Head of the Hydropower Plants Department at energy utility ENCRO, highlighted how modern storage technology is running into rules never designed for it. As a result, projects are not being built where they would make most sense technically or for the grid. "The approved standalone storage systems are being installed almost exclusively in the same regions, because developers are not optimising their projects according to economic, technical and grid-related criteria, but according to how they can get a project through at all," he said. "Croatia, however, is not rich enough to afford such an approach."
Regulation trailing the market
This dynamic is being sharpened further by the pace of technology cycles, according to Josip Tošić, Managing Director of Toska, a consultancy specialising in renewable energy. He warned that administrative adjustments are no longer keeping pace with the market. "If Croatia hesitates now, the next wave, hydrogen for instance, will roll over the country without the current storage wave being fully exploited," he predicted.
Grid expansion urgently needed
The reform backlog is particularly evident in the transmission grid. Goran Majstorović of the Hrvoje Požar Energy Institute traced this back to a more fundamental problem. "It is my deep conviction that the biggest problem is the failure to take decisions. A poor decision can at least be corrected once it is recognised as poor, but if no decision is taken at all, nothing on the grid will ever be improved."
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He points to the strategically central 400-kilovolt line in southern Croatia. This was approved by the regulatory authority HERA back in 2022, yet will not enter operation before 2035, with concrete decisions repeatedly deferred. And it is urgently needed, energy transition aside: 59 percent of the lines are more than 40 years old, and grid depreciation will reach 70 percent in 2027. Despite this, investment is being withheld, which the panel views as a serious error. ENTSO-E, the European network of transmission operators, calculates that every euro invested in the grid returns three euros through lower production costs.
Grid expansion stuck in slow lane
How concrete these delays are was set out by Ljupko Teklić, Deputy Director for Development, Investment and Planning at transmission grid operator HOPS, citing the Lika project in north-western Croatia. The project has advanced as far as the building permit stage, but spatial planning documents in Lika-Senj and Šibenik-Knin counties are blocking the environmental impact assessment. "The actual construction work could, provided financing is also secured, take place no earlier than 2035," Teklić said. He rated the conditional approval HOPS has received from the Ministry of Economy for its ten-year plan as a first substantial step towards realisation.
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DC lines are becoming competitive
While HOPS is working on expanding the AC infrastructure, Igor Kuzle, Head of the Laboratory for Advanced Electrical Power Networks at the University of Zagreb, urged a look at the next generation. "Direct current lines are already being built in Europe, and their price has fallen sharply, with far better controllability," he said. "If the Lika project is not built until 2035, high-voltage direct current lines will be highly competitive and offer far more than the conventional AC technology planned for the line." Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro are already planning or commissioning such high-voltage DC transmission lines, he warned, and Croatia risks being bypassed.
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Coordinated action needed
The industry is pinning its hopes on the Act on Spatial Planning and Infrastructure Projects, which came into force at the start of 2025. It is intended to bundle the permitting procedure for strategic projects along defined corridors. Helena Pokos of Eon sees this as a step forward, but the actual acceleration, she cautioned, will depend on coordinated action by all parties. (su)
