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This paper analyses potential geothermal sites in North-East Croatia which is part of the Pannonian Basin System where a substantial geothermal potential was discovered during hydrocarbon exploration using the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Tool specially developed for the purposes of the Horizon 2020 project: Multidisciplinary and multi-context demonstration of EGS exploration and Exploitation Techniques and potentials (H2020 MEET). Most of these sites use available geothermal energy potential for commercial purposes, mainly for balneology and more recently for agriculture and electricity generation. The case study involves five different geothermal locations chosen according to their geothermal potential, the current state of production and possible future development, including one oil field that is at the very end of its production life. Three potential final users’ types; agriculture demand, electricity generation demand and district heating have been evaluated for each of the five chosen geothermal sites. The conducted analysis should be of great benefit for further analyses which will be carried out using the aforementioned Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Tool. The performed study showed high consistency of obtained results and actual usage of five geothermal fields.

Several Western Balkan states face the consequences of the Yugoslavian war, which left hometowns with dilapidated electricity grid connections, a high average age of power plant capacities and low integration of renewable energy sources, grid bottlenecks and a lack of competition. In order to supply all households with electricity, UNDP Croatia did a research on decentralized supply systems based on renewable energy sources. Decentralized supply systems offer cheaper electricity connections and provide faster support to rural development. This paper proposes a developed methodology to financially compare isolated grid solutions that primarily use renewable energies to an extension of the public electricity network to small regions in Croatia. Isolated grid supply proves to be very often a preferable option. Furthermore, it points out the lack of a reliable evaluation of non-monetizable aspects and promotes a new interdisciplinary approach.

Today?s electrical energy landscape is characterized by new challenges such as deregulation, liberalization of energy markets, increased competition, growing demands on security of supply, price insecurities, and demand to cut CO2 emissions. All mentioned challenges are calling for consideration of various options (like nuclear, coal, gas or renewable scenarios) and for better understanding of energy systems modelling in order to optimize proper energy mix. Existing models are not sufficient any more and planners will need to think differently in order to face these challenges. European emission trading scheme (EU ETS) started in 2005 and it has great influence on power system short term and long term planning. Croatia is obliged to establish a national scheme for trading of greenhouse gas emission allowances from the year 2010, which will be focused on monitoring and reporting only until accession to EU when it will be linked with EU ETS. Thus, for Croatian power system it is very important to analyze possible impacts of CO2 emissions. Analysis presented in this paper was done by two different models: mathematical model, based on short run marginal costs (SRMC, relevant for fuel switch in existing power plant and merit order change) and long run marginal costs (LRMC, relevant for new investment decisions); and electricity market simulation model PLEXOS, which was used for modelling Croatian power system during development of the Croatian energy strategy in 2008. Results of the analysis show important impacts that emission trading has on Croatian power system, such as influence of emission price rise on price of electricity and on emission quantity, and changes in power plants output that appear with emission price rise. Breakeven point after which gas power plant becomes more competitive than coal is 62 ?/tCO2 for SRMC and 40 ?/tCO2 for LRMC. With CO2 prices above 31 ?/tCO2 wind is more competitive than gas or coal, which emphasizes importance that emission price has on competitiveness of renewables.