On the Road to Energy Independence in Križevci by 2030
The city of Križevci in Croatia wants to be energy independent by 2030. Simple as that. Not simple at all. But feasible.
Križevci city is rather small — with around 11.000 people living in the urban ‘core’ and 11.000 more residents in rural parts of the city area.
How have we started this journey? Let me tell you - and also where we plan to go next.
The Beginnings
Križevci has open-minded and far-looking leadership and several personas with innovative and avant-garde thinking. They started the process of experimenting with new business models to harness local renewable energy resources, and engaging citizens into the vision of becoming energy independent by 2030.
In 2018–2019 the City piloted two crowdfunding campaigns for investment in public solar roofs backed by roughly 100 citizens. The first campaign was for a solar PV plant on the Technology Park and was backed within 10 days. The second, on the City Library roof, was backed in just 2 days. Public institutions get the electricity and citizens get a return on their investment with a 3.5–4% interest rate over a 10-year period. After that period the PV plants will go into city/public ownership with income distributed for public use.
This was the first social innovation of this kind in Croatia. This is significant, because Croatian citizens make the largest contribution to the national support schemes for renewable-energy through fees in their electricity bill - a total of 200 mil EUR each year. However, in the last 10 years, only 115 households used the support to become renewable energy ‘pro-sumers’. There is a huge gap, and also a huge opportunity. For the transformation we want to see, we need engaged citizens, and being a prosumer is a good introduction to transformation of the way we live, work and travel.
Our Next Steps
If we take the typical diffusion for innovation, then the first hundred backers of solar roofs in 2018–2019 were the first 1% of innovators in the community. In the next step - we need to engage at least 1000 more people to catch the 10% of early adopters.
The nearest next opportunity is a 5 MW solar PV plant, for which a community co-sharing ownership model is being developed with the City and national energy utility company Hrvatska elektroprivreda (HEP).
When HEP launched a public call for local authorities to develop new solar projects, Križevci responded with a proposal for a community energy investment model. An agreement has now been signed between the Municipality and HEP to develop a 5 MW solar power plant, with an expected investment of 4 million EUR. This includes a requirement to involve the local community in financing 20% of the project. This model will be another first for Croatia. How to get to this 800K? Well, reaching-out to 1000 early adopters to crowd-invest.
The income from the 20% community-owned power production is estimated to be around 70–80.000 EUR per year. This will be shared within the energy community to pay annual interest to investors and contribute to a community-development fund.
Then, several other suitable locations for further solar projects are already identified, such as the local water pumping station and other roofs on public buildings — the school, kindergarten and sport center. All these are perfect candidates for similar community ownership models.
Another experiment underway is to demonstrate how a local micro-grid based on blockchain technology works, with help from a EU R&D Horizon-supported project and Green Energy Cooperative (ZEZ).
Križevci has also begun researching how to deploy the geothermal potential of a local reservoir to develop district heating, initially for public buildings.
The moment for such action is right, with the EU Green Deal and Cities Mission Board demanding carbon-neutral transformations ‘by and for citizens’. In Križevci we plan to advance these actions through the new local energy cooperative KLIK.
The Križevci Laboraratory of Innovation for Climate (KLIK) has been founded in 2020 as the core of the future local energy community. KLIK will contribute to the city’s transition to energy independence. The plan is to use this model as the incubator of change, manage more community-energy projects in Križevci, engage citizens in the city energy transition and develop into a true public-private-civic partnership.
There is a role for local farmers too. They are planning to form an agricultural cooperative that produces pellets from agrobiomass which will be used for heating on their farms, and the surplus sold. Short supply food chains have also been established between local farmers and citizens with the “Zdravo Križevci” app - developed and fully deployed during the COVID-19 lockdown. The plan is for the brand to become recognizable throughout Croatia and as an example of good local food systems practice. But this is for another story!
Another concept being cooked up is for a local currency — Križ-coin as an additional incentive for local investors in community initiatives. For each investor, part of the return (or initial investment?) will be “monetised” in Križ-coin, potentially in the form of a local digital currency. The idea is to help keep value in the local community and make it circulate within the local economy rather than as passive savings or leaking-out of the local value chain. Guess who will play with this idea this year? Climathon-teams in Križevci!
Enabling System Transformation
So far this story was mainly about the energy transition and independence, but the real development will come with a whole system transformation in Križevci - to become one of the best possible places to live work and visit in Europe.
The entire enablers of transformation circle will be needed to create this change. To generate new knowledge, new business models, new products and services - which bring the opportunity of smart, green and sustainable job generation. And, what is more important, values creation for the local community in Križevci.
It’s also crucial to work with people and tackle all levels of education. In the next three years, the plan is to develop extracurricular programs for school children. The local agriculture college “VGUK” and the Adult Education School will also introduce new education and qualification programs more “fit for future” - in collaboration with leading innovation and research institutions of Zagreb University. The local Technology Park in Križevci also runs start-up incubators in partnership with neighboring cities Varaždin, Koprivnica and Zagreb. A Future Hub and the Green Hub are just being started in 2020 and will play an important role in connecting local education, youth, innovation and application of new solutions.
So, this is how we have started on the path to an energy independent Križevci in 2030. And how we plan to go from energy transition to city transformation.
It is not simple, it takes time and many players in the system - but it is possible. Everybody has a role. Join us!
For more information please contact: erica.svetec@zez.coop
