News
Energy Community Insights: Slovenia
Tour of Central & Eastern Europe: 2nd stop with Slovenia'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 second blog post delves into the current landscape of energy communities in Slovenia, highlighting the key challenges faced, and offering policy recommendations to foster their growth and ensure long-term sustainability.
Current State of maturity of Energy Communities in Slovenia
In Slovenia, energy communities remain at a minimum level of maturity. While the country has transposed key provisions of the European directives (REDII, IEMD) into national legislation, this has largely been a direct copy of EU provisions, resulting in a regulatory framework that remains unclear and underdeveloped. Only collective self-consumption is currently regulated, leaving other potential contributions of energy communities to the energy transition unaddressed. The latest revision of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) includes energy communities, but past failures in implementing planned measures cast doubt on whether meaningful progress will indeed be achieved.
Several barriers hinder the development of energy communities in Slovenia:
- Unclear Regulatory Framework: The Slovenian government has yet to adopt a comprehensive enabling framework for energy communities. While municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants are now required to plan at least one energy community within their local energy strategies, the broader legislative and regulatory environment remains inadequate.
- Financial Uncertainty and Lack of Business Models: Funding opportunities for energy communities exist but are unpredictable and dependent on public calls. A sustainable financial mechanism for initial project preparation and technical assistance is still missing. The only tested business model, based on net-metering, has become obsolete with the transition to a net-billing system, leaving energy communities without viable alternatives.
- Limited Awareness and Stakeholder Engagement: Public awareness of the role and benefits of energy communities remains low, hindering citizen participation. Although multiple actors support energy communities—including NGOs, local energy agencies, research organizations, and some municipalities—their engagement in decision-making processes on the national level has had limited success so far.
- Challenges in Collective Self-Consumption Schemes: Since 2019, 187 collective self-consumption communities have been formed, but many of these have been organized by large energy companies rather than operating under democratic principles. The recent shift from net-metering to net-billing has stalled new projects, as suppliers are unprepared to implement the system, therefore putting on hold the development of new collective self-consumption projects.
Steps to unlock the potential of Energy Communities
To overcome these challenges and foster a more supportive environment for energy communities, Slovenia must adopt a strategic approach that includes the following key actions:
- Regulatory Adjustments
- Adopt an enabling framework for energy communities to provide legal clarity and regulatory support.
- Expand regulatory measures to allow energy communities broader participation in the energy transition beyond collective self-consumption.
- Address the transition from net-metering to net-billing with policies that ensure continued viability for energy community business models.
- Financial and Business Model Development
- Establish a dedicated financial mechanism for technical assistance and preparatory activities to support emerging energy communities.
- Develop and promote sustainable business models that align with the new regulatory framework and market conditions.
- Stakeholder Engagement and Public Awareness
- Strengthen the involvement of energy community actors and supporters in national decision-making processes to ensure their concerns are addressed.
- Increase public awareness through targeted education and outreach campaigns to highlight the benefits of energy communities for citizens and local development.
- Support municipalities in integrating energy community planning within their local energy strategies.
- Support for Energy Communities as a Tool for Energy Justice
- Develop and implement specific measures to support energy communities in addressing energy poverty, such as targeted financial support, ensuring that vulnerable groups benefit from community energy initiatives.
Despite the obstacles, the development of energy communities in Slovenia is steadily growing. A significant improvement has been the creation of the Energy Community Network, an informal coalition launched in autumn 2024 to connect stakeholders, share knowledge, and promote better regulatory frameworks. The network aims to push for improved policies, financing mechanisms, and awareness-raising activities to create a more enabling environment for energy communities.
Slovenia can build on the potential of citizen-driven renewable energy projects and accelerate its just energy transition, but achieving this goal will require sustained political commitment and collaboration among all relevant actors, including the members of the Energy Community Network. Stay tuned for our next blog post about Slovenia, where we will take a closer look at the role of the energy community coalition and their activities in Slovenia.
* 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.
