[en] As Croatia begins the task of restructuring its energy sector, it has the opportunity to design programs and policies which will create the framework for a viable renewable energy contribution to overall energy supply. Croatia has many of the resources required for renewable energy, including good solar insolation, wind resources, small hydro and biomass. Implementing renewable energy projects is still a challenging prospect, mainly because of competition from fossil fuel sources of energy and because of the small scale and intermittent nature of renewable energy sources. However, there are many benefits, the most important of which are sustainability and reduced or zero air emission. in the most cases these benefits are not quantified or internalized into the project costs. As a result, most renewable energy projects are more costly than conventional projects on a purely financial basis. Overcoming the barriers to implementing renewable energy has been focus of many environmental groups as well as governments, especially in the last decade. Several countries, notably Denmark, have aggressively targeted increase use of renewable energy in the energy mix of the countries, and have implemented policies and regulations to encourage private and public sector use of renewables. policies in place include fiscal incentives, such as tax breaks, regulations such as guaranteed market share and pricing, or more market-based approaches such as green pricing, where consumers decide the premium they will pay for energy. Some of these policies have been quite successful in providing the right incentives to developers and utilities in adding more renewable energy to the national generation mix. Additionally, the area of emissions trading can be thought of as a policy initiative for a market-based approach to promoting increased renewable energy use. While the uncertainties of climate change and the politics of climate change make this a difficult area to count on, it should be considered, even for a country such as Croatia which has self-imposed targets for reducing emissions. A country-by-country description of different policies and how these have fared in terms of increasing renewable energy generation will lead to a discussion of what policies Croatia might consider as it moves forward with restructuring. Finally, other financial mechanisms, such as renewable energy funds, can be considered as non-policy measures to increase the opportunities for renewable energy development. (author)