Poštak, registered in Croatia’s capital Zagreb, has completed an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study for the Ljut wind park and submitted it to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition.

The ministry has launched a public discussion on the EIA study, which lasts until October 3. The power plant will be located in the municipality of Gradac in Zadar county.

Wind park Ljut would consist of 37 wind turbines.

In the broader area around the site for the Ljut wind project, there is an existing VE ZD6 wind farm with four turbines totaling 9.2 MW, and VE Expansion ZD6, with 13 turbines and a total capacity of 44.2 MW, the EIA study notes.

The final technical solutions for the wind turbines will depend on commercially available equipment at the time of contracting for the delivery of equipment. The owner of Poštak is Iljko Ćurić, according to the Croatian business registry.

Currently, the largest wind park in Croatia is Senj, with a capacity of 156 MW. It was built by Norinco, headquartered in China. The power plant has recently joined the virtual power plant of the GEN-I Group.

In addition to VE Ljut, another larger wind project was recently announced. Enlight Renewable Energy plans to install a facility called Moseć-Crni Umac / Sitno Gornje. Its capacity would be 166 MW.

Poor investment climate in Croatia

Despite announcements of such large projects, the investment climate for renewable energy sources in Croatia seems unfavorable at the moment. A few days ago, RES Croatia, together with SolarPower Europe and WindEurope, sent a letter to the European Commission to raise concerns about the crisis in the country’s renewable energy sector.

The three associations emphasized that for several years, 60 projects for investments in solar, wind, geothermal, and batteries have been blocked, and that if nothing is done, many of them would soon be abandoned.

The largest wind farm in Southeast Europe is the 600 MW Fântânele-Cogealac-Gradina wind park in Romania. The proposed Štip wind park in North Macedonia, envisaged at 400 MW, could become number two. Construction began in July.