Last weekend of September was quite exciting for our Department. We first visited hydropower plants Gojak and Lešće, where the local experts welcomed us and gave us a tour of both power plants. While hydro power plant Gojak has been in operation since 1959, hydro power plant Lešće is the only medium-scale power plant (installed capacity 41,2 MW) constructed in Croatia in the last 30 years. Then we traveled to the island of Vis to take a tour of the first large-scale battery facility (1,45 MWh) coupled with a 3,5 MW solar power plant. This hybrid facility will provide security of supply to this remote Croatian island, especially important during the tourist season. In the rest of the year the battery storage will be used for arbitrage and provision of frequency ancillary services. All the visited facilities are owned and operated by HEP, while the battery storage is currently being commissioned by Končar INEM. We would like to thank to all our hosts for this insightful and highly informative technical visit.
