Macedonia Country Update 2007 First Signs of Recovery

Abstract

Republic of Macedonia passed more than fifteen years of stagnation in geothermal development. Some of previously developed large projects have been abandoned or destroyed. There were no investments in explorations and new projects development. Geothermal energy production in 2006 dropped down for nearly 50%, compared to the situation in 1991. Recently, first signs of economy recovery of some users and finalized privatization process resulted with several investments in reconstruction and optimization of geothermal projects. There is interest of the others to do the same and some home and foreign investors are trying to get concession for development of new projects. Review of presently known geothermal fields and their production capacities, running projects, abandoned or destroyed projects and new activities, i.e. reconstruction and modernization of existing, organization of new projects and possibilities to develop either the geothermal energy resource or its exploitation is made in this paper.