Geothermal heating is currently being supplied to the Mladost Sports Park and the Faculty of Kinesiology. To expand the capacity of this existing system, the study proposed location for the drilling future wells. “In the study, we singled out the zone with the best reservoir characteristics, predicting sustainable production in the best aquifers ,” notedd Zeljka Sladovic, Director of Geoda Consulting, emphasizing that the geothermal resources are not of equal quality everywhere.
The study states that the Zagreb geothermal field has a theoretical capacity of 150 MW and an obtainable capacity of 120 MW. This is significantly higher than what was previously known according to Zeljko Jurilj of GPC Instrumentation Process. The company holds the exclusive rights for development of the Zagreb geothermal field.
Vladislav Brkic, Dean of the Faculty of Mining, Geology, and Petroleum in Zagreb and President of the Croatian Association for Geothermal Energy, stated that Zagreb has a higher geothermal gradient than the European average, like most regions in the Pannonian Basin. He emphasized that this geothermal resources must be used, especially since there has not been much work done since the discovery of the Zagreb geothermal field back in 1977.
“Given the market economy and the prices of energy sources and the geoenergy crisis and the new environmental requirements that the European Union has set before itself, now is the right time to put the proven geothermal potential into greater use, even according to the study on reserves ,” said Brkic.
The City of Zagreb has already earmarked an area of 370,000 square meters for the planned thermal bath. Legal property issues still need to be resolved, but Jurilj says that there are already several investors interested in the project which envisions the creation of the largest “geothermal lake” in Europe.
Efforts for geothermal development in Croatia have become very active in the last few years following several tenders for geothermal sites by the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency. More recently, the agency commissioned local drilling company Crosco to drill at four geothermal exploration sites across the country.
