Year 2023 a Record Year for Solar, Will 2024 Be Even Better?

In the new year, a reform of the energy market at the level of the entire European Union is expected. It has been announced that direct sales of electricity from producers to end customers will finally be enabled.

The past year will be remembered for the fact that more solar power plants were built on households in Croatia than in all previous years combined. Forte Solar also achieved an exceptional result: we recorded higher revenue than in all previous years combined! We can proudly say that we have become one of the leading builders of solar power plants in Croatia.

Sunny Hvar

We have successfully built power plants on all available roofs of the company Sunny Hvar, which is, as far as I know, the largest solar capacity on a single hotel in Dalmatia, and generally on the roofs of any entity on the islands! The path towards complete sustainability in Hvar continued with membership in UNESCO’s ‘Sustainable Travel Pledge’ program, as the first hotel in Croatia to achieve this. Good trends in Hvar have also been recognized by investors, and the company was sold to investor – Sheikh Mohammed Alabbar, the richest man from Dubai, after the summer. I believe that the power plants we built for them helped the investor decide to purchase.

New Legal Regulations

Households are now allowed to have excess energy produced from solar, which will now be paid up to 1,327 euros (10,000 kuna) annually. We once had a housing savings model where one could initially receive a 25% return, and later 15%, which many families used to grow their capital. Now they are given the opportunity to utilize free roofs for electricity production, i.e., money.

The Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund has also announced a competition for households that for the first time values already built power plants, with a 50% subsidy (up to 600 euros per kW).

In addition to this competition, new competitions for households and the manufacturing industry are expected in the first quarter, where up to 75% subsidies for the procurement of solar power plants can be obtained. There are also new regulations that have transferred institutions to a netting model in which, like households, they can send and withdraw produced kilowatt-hours from the grid without charge (the HEP grid ‘acts’ as their battery). The administration for building power plants on land has been simplified, including agrosolar power plants, which will surely be a hit in the coming years. Forte Solar is preparing documentation for several such projects with an installed capacity of over 30 MW.

Reform of the Electricity Market

In the new year, a reform of the energy market at the level of the entire European Union is expected. It is announced that ‘real’ PPA contracts, i.e., direct sales of electricity from producers to end customers, will finally be enabled.

Anyone with a company and a free roof will be able to build a power plant of, for example, 100 kW and sell their own electricity to another company in Croatia that needs it but does not have a roof to install solar panels (e.g., a chain of stores in shopping centers). Energy can be sold at an agreed price (e.g., between what the buyer currently pays and what the producer can achieve on the market) for the long term.

A change in the Regulation on Simple and Other Buildings and Works is also eagerly awaited, which announces the abolition of building permits for power plants up to 10 MW. If this proposal is passed in the Parliament, it will be a significant boost for the construction of new renewable energy capacities…

Content created in collaboration with Forte Solar.