After two years of research, a superheated underground lake was discovered and could become the geothermal electricity supply to Croatia’s far north.
Bukotermal, the energy company responsible, was searching for locations where there is extreme heat generated by the Earth’s core coming to the surface.
The lake was found at Lunjkovec-Kutnjak field in Varazdin County, on the border of Croatia and Hungary. At a depth of 2.4 kilometers, researchers estimated the lake to be 142.04 degrees celcius (287.654 degrees fahrenheit). They found the site suitable for a 16MW geothermal power plant capable of supplying electricity to tens of thousands of homes. So far, the project has over €2.5mn invested in it, but Alen Pozgaj (CEO of Bukotermal) estimates that the total cost of building the plant will be around €50mn.
Just days before the discovery, five licenses to explore geothermal waters were awarded to firms from Croatia, the UK, and Turkey. The Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency issued a tender worth more than €40 million, focusing on five regions in the northern and northeastern areas. These regions already have existing wells, which are remnants from past oil and gas operations. By using these old wells, companies are able to avoid digging new ones and the risk and cost to investors is lower.
Italy stands out as the European Union’s leading Geothermal Electricity producer with a capacity of approximately 915MW, Germany follows with 38MW, and Portugal with 30MW. Croatia is currently at a lower installed capacity, but they hope to tap into the potential of their hot water pools to provide clean electricity to one-third of the country.
Projects have already begun to heat entire towns by pumping hot water underground, farmers utilize this as well to heat their greenhouses. Providing power to roughly 29,000 Croatian homes, the Italian Velika Ciglena plant is the country’s first geothermal power plant put into operation in 2019. To scale, it produces the same amount of electricity as about 94 football fields of solar panels and is a tenth of that size.
With only six months to propose a plan to exploit the recently discovered geothermal lake, Bukotermal hopes to establish one or more geothermal power plants and heat utilization facilities. Construction is expected to begin within two years.
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