The project is a solar power plant of 30 kW on the roof of Development Centre and Technology Park in Križevci, a small city 60 kilometers away from Zagreb, the Croatian capital. The initiative came from the Green Energy Cooperative or ZEZ who developed the project together with partners from the City of Križevci, Regional Energy Agency North, Greenpeace Croatia, Solvis, and ACT Group. ZEZ was working on technical and economic elements of the project for almost a year, then prepared and launched a crowd-lending campaign to raise the necessary amount of 230.000 kuna (30.000 euro) to build the solar plant. This was the first crowd-lending project in Croatia for the first citizen energy project. The amount was collected in ten days by 53 small investors, based on micro-loans model. ZEZ will return the loans to investors with 4.5% of interest over a period of 10 years, from the income generated by electricity production of the solar power plant on the roof. The minimum investment chip was 1000 kuna (130 euro), the maximum was 10.000 kuna (1300 euro) and the average in this project was 4000 kuna (500 euro). Electricity will power the needs of Development and Technology Centre tenants and demonstrates a great positive example for the others.

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Green Energy Cooperative

Green Energy Cooperative (hrv. Zelena energetska zadruga, ZEZ) is a Croatian RES cooperative established in September 2013 within the UNDP energy cooperative development project. ZEZ is a social enterprise based in Zagreb, gathering 19 experts and currently employing 7 people. The cooperative members have vast experience in coordinating and working in innovative green energy initiatives, development projects, designing policy recommendations and carrying out educational activities. In the focus of their work are locally initiated RES&EE projects, with the aim of empowering local communities through use of local resources. ZEZ is one of Board Members of REScoop.eu, then a a co-founding member of Cooperative for Ethical Financing (representing more than 1.300 people, companies and local authorities in Croatia, http://www.zef.hr/), and co-leader of their energy section. Since 2013, we have been putting our efforts to share community energy concept in our country and across borders. Energy Community appointed us as core topic leader for “Citizens participation in the development of RE projects” within RE coordination group, for 2016 and 2017, for South East Europe. We continually support all energy cooperatives in Croatia, established within the UNDP energy cooperative development project in 2013. At the moment, there are 9 active cooperatives, developing local RES&EE initiatives. The cooperative model is still underdeveloped in Croatia and in the region, thanks to administrative barriers for small RES projects and unfavourable laws. We are hoping to encourage community energy by gathering all energy coop initiatives under joint Balkan umbrella – a new platform for community energy in the West Balkan countries.

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