Croatia's regulator adopted a written list of what blocks companies from using their own solar power
HERA's board adopted an enabling framework for renewable self-consumption on 16 July 2026, published 21 July. It maps existing unjustified barriers to producing and using your own power and pairs them with proposals. It follows a public consultation in April and an online workshop.
Plenty of Croatian firms want to run their buildings on their own roof power. The hold-up is often not the panels. It is the forms, the rules and the meter.
On 21 July 2026, HERA said its board adopted, at its 15th session on 16 July, a decision setting out an enabling framework to promote and ease self-consumption of renewable energy. The renewable energy law requires it under article 53.
HERA says the document assesses existing unjustified barriers to self-consumption in Croatia and gives proposals for each, collected at the end. A public consultation ran from 1 to 30 April 2026, followed by an online workshop. HERA calls it one of the key first steps to speed up the energy transition and strengthen active customers, meaning users who produce, store or share their own power.
Analogy: it is a building inspector walking the site with a clipboard and writing down every door that sticks. The doors are not fixed yet. The list is.
Good: the regulator put its name on a written list of barriers, after public comment. Businesses and installers can now point at a HERA document when a rule gets in the way of a self-use project.
Bad: the notice does not quote fee changes, deadlines or new rights. A framework is a map, not a change in the law.
Ugly: the notice does not say who fixes each barrier, or by when. Until someone does, the obstacles on the list still stand.
Source: HERA, 21 Jul 2026 - enabling framework for renewable self-consumption adopted; HERA, 23 Jun 2026 - invitation to the online workshop on the draft framework.