Geothermal Energy Use, Country Update for Serbia

Abstract

Geothermal investigations in Serbia began in 1974, after the first world oil crises. The territory of Serbia has favourable geothermal characteristics. There are four geothermal provinces. The most promising are the Pannonian and Neogen magmatic activation provinces. More than eighty hydrogeothermal systems are present in Serbia. The most important are located at the southern edge of the Pannonian Basin. The reservoirs of these systems are in karstified Mesozoic limestones. In Serbia, excluding Panonian basin, there are 159 natural springs of thermal water with temperature above 15 oC, with total flow 4000 l/s. In Pannonian basin there are 81 hydrogeothermal drillholes with total average flow of about 650 l/s, and water temperature that ranges from 21oC to 82oC. Geothermal energy in Serbia is being utilized from hydrogeothermal drillholes for balneological purposes, in agriculture and for space heating with heat exchangers and heat pumps. By the end of 2012 108.9 MWth of available heat capacity in existing objects was used. However, recently due to the global trends on one side and forced by EU on the other, interests and investments in geothermal energy utilization increased where the greatest steps were made by the recent Project "Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Energy Efficiency", EuropeAid/129768/C/SER/RS" realization.