News
Energy Community Insights: Croatia
Tour of Central & Eastern Europe: 1st stop with Croatia's Energy Communities
The Life COMET project aims to transform the community energy landscape in Central and Eastern Europe through assessment, experience sharing, and coalition building. Our series of blog posts “Energy Community Insights: A Tour of Central & Eastern Europe” summarizes national assessments and action plans for enhancing energy community maturity * in Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia.
This first blog post examines Croatia’s current state of energy community development, the key challenges they face, and the policy recommendations necessary for advancing their maturity and sustainability.
Current State of maturity of Energy Communities in Croatia
Energy communities hold considerable potential for accelerating Croatia’s transition to renewable energy. However, despite legislative support and growing public interest, their practical implementation remains hindered by financial, administrative, and regulatory obstacles.
While Croatia has successfully transposed key European directives on energy communities into national law, their application remains limited. As of now, only three energy communities have been registered. The main barriers include:
- High Registration Costs and Bureaucratic Hurdles: Registering an energy community can exceed €20,000 and take over six months, discouraging smaller initiatives from launching projects.
- Unclear Business Models and Financial Uncertainty: Fluctuating electricity buyback prices and a lack of clear financial mechanisms make it difficult for energy communities to achieve long-term viability.
- Incomplete Energy Sharing Framework: Although energy sharing is legally recognized, the lack of tariffs and technical infrastructure prevents effective implementation.
- Minimal Stakeholder Engagement: Energy community initiatives struggle to influence policy changes, with most of their recommendations ignored.
- Limited Political Will and Administrative Cooperation: Weak collaboration among key actors, such as ministries, regulators, and DSOs, slows progress.
- Insufficient Financial Support: Existing incentives do not adequately support energy communities, making it difficult to secure investments.
- High Public Interest but Untapped Potential: Over 110 multi-residential buildings have shown interest in energy communities, yet regulatory and financial barriers prevent them from moving forward.
Path Forward to enable the development of energy communities
To overcome these barriers and support the development of Croatia’s energy communities, a comprehensive approach is necessary. The following key actions can help foster a more supportive environment for energy community growth:
Regulatory Adjustments
- Amend renewable energy (RES) and energy efficiency (EE) laws to simplify documentation and streamline approval processes.
- Establish clear protocols for energy sharing, ensuring technical and administrative readiness from DSOs.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Enhance collaboration between ministries, regulators (HERA), and DSOs to remove legal ambiguities and accelerate implementation.
- Strengthen the coalition "Energy Communities Forum in Croatia" as a platform for knowledge-sharing and alignment on financial and legal models.
Public Awareness Campaigns
- Launch educational initiatives via media, social platforms, and community outreach to increase citizen participation in energy communities.
Pilot Projects
- Support pilot programs in municipalities to develop replicable models for energy communities.
Capacity Building
- Provide workshops and resources for municipalities and citizens to navigate financial, legal, and technical aspects of forming energy communities.
Despite the challenges, Croatia’s energy communities hold significant promise. With proactive regulatory reforms, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and strategic financial incentives, the country can unlock the full potential of citizen-driven renewable energy projects. Achieving this requires strong political commitment and collaboration among all relevant actors to advance the maturity of energy communities. A key role will be held by the Energy Communities Forum, which is actively working to strengthen collaboration and drive policy improvements in Croatia together with ZEZ, the Green Energy Cooperative. We will take a closer look at their efforts and impact in an upcoming blog post about energy communities coalitions. Stay tuned!
* To measure maturity, a tailor-made assessment tool was created, incorporating weighted criteria and scoring countries' performance across 11 areas: political will, transposition process, local, regional and national strategies, regulatory framework, business models, financing, collective self-consumption, networking, knowledge, awareness and stakeholder engagement. Read the full assessment for all 7 countries studied here.
