February the 21st, 2025 – A Chinese consortium has been awarded the contract to construct the much anticipated Korlat solar power plant, a large HEP project.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sinisa Malus writes, a Chinese consortium consisting of Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute and China North Industries Group International Corporation (NORINCO) has won the tender to build the 99 MWp Korlat solar power plant. The plant is a significant project for HEP, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced on Tuesday.

The value of the aforementioned signed contract amounts to a whopping 59.96 million euros (63 million US dollars), the EBRD also noted.

The Chinese consortium, consisting of two companies, has been selected to carry out the engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and testing of the Korlat solar power plant, with the contract scheduled for completion on the 23rd of April 2028.

The EBRD previously announced that it had approved a loan of up to 31.6 million euros to HEP to finance the construction and operation of the Korlat solar power plant, with the aim of supporting Croatia’s transition to green energy. The remaining money was provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB) The total loan arrangement amounted to 62 million euros.

The project will support HEP’s decarbonisation plans, and the projected reduction in CO2 emissions is around 28,899 tonnes per year.

HEP is otherwise developing the Korlat solar power plant in northern Dalmatia as part of the wider scope of the Korlat energy park. The solar power plant will be partly located on the site of the existing 58 MW Korlat wind farm.

It should be noted that the Chinese consortium chosen to build the Korlat solar power plant have a task and a half on their hands. The plant is going to be the largest solar power plant project in Croatia. Its installed capacity will be 99 megawatts, while the connected capacity is 75 megawatts. The expected annual production of the Korlat power plant is 165 million kilowatt hours, which will be enough to supply around 50,000 households. In the next phase, a battery storage system and a new solar power plant with an installed capacity of 40 megawatts will be installed at the same location.

This will certainly be the largest solar power plant in HEP’s portfolio to date, and it could be operational in 2026. Construction is expected to begin this year.

HEP’s Korlat wind farm will be built next to the existing Korlat wind farm near Benkovac, which has been in operation since 2021, and will span an area of ​​about 150 hectares. As announced, construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025.

So far, nine smaller solar power plants have been built in Porfelje (SE Kaštelir, SE Kaštelir 2, SE Vis, SE Marići, SE Kosore Jug (Vrlika), SE Stankovci, SE Obrovac, SE Donja Dubrava and SE Jambrek, and the last one in the series has been in trial operation since June last year, as announced on HEP’s website.

The company otherwise holds an open invitation to local self-government units to jointly develop solar power projects, and to private companies interested in selling their renewable energy projects.

HEP is also building SE Črnkovci (11.33 megawatts), SE Radosavci (13.2 megawatts), SE Dugopolje (13.54 megawatts), SE Čakovec (11 megawatts) and SE Lipik (5 megawatts), and SE Unije (1 megawatt) is also planned. According to the company, they have obtained energy approvals for wind and solar power plants power plants with a total capacity of about 220 megawatts, including the Korlat power plant project.

All of the above is being implemented in accordance with HEP’s wider development strategy for the period until 2030 with a view to 2050. As an interim goal, by 2030 it intends to increase the share of renewable sources in its production portfolio by 50 percent. During years with average hydrological conditions, it wants to increase its annual production from renewable sources from six to nine billion kilowatt hours compared to the base year of 2017. If energy from the Krško nuclear power plant is also included, then currently around 70 percent of HEP’s electricity production already comes from sources that do not emit CO2.
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