Offshore renewable energy in the Adriatic Sea with respect to the Croatian 2020 energy strategy

July 1st 2013 Croatia joined the European Union (EU). During the acceding process the Croatian government strongly committed to an intensive development in the renewable energy sector. In particular, each EU member state is supposed to reach the mandatory 20% share of renewable sources in the total energy consumption by the year 2020, which goal now applies to Croatia as well. At this point, a significant Croatian renewable energy source is hydro power. However, it is at its peak and does not have a potential for further development due to limited natural hydro resources. On the other hand, onshore wind farms developed strongly in the past decade, with their limit in the sight though, as the most licenses for potential wind farm locations are already awarded by the Croatian government. At this point there is not a single offshore renewable energy power plant available in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea indicating an interesting possibility in that direction. Hence, in this study, we analyze a potential for development of an offshore renewable energy power plant in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea with likely implication on the environment and economy. We particularly focus on technology that would exploit the kinetic energy of wind and sea currents, whereas structural design issues, wind and tidal potential, sea depths, and sea traffic routes were thoroughly analyzed in order to identify the potential locations for the proposed renewable energy concepts. Electrical energy output is calculated and potential technical issues identified in order to highlight expected environmental and social benefits of such a challenging task as it is designing, manufacturing and maintaining of an offshore power plant in the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea.