Croatia's first energy community is live: 17 members share one fire station roof, no battery
A 32 kW rooftop plant on the volunteer fire brigade building in Spickovina near Zabok shares its output with 17 members over the public grid by a fixed allocation key. One micro-enterprise is a member. Plans to double to 64 kW. HEP ODS introduced energy sharing in April.
Small Croatian firms without a good roof of their own now have a second route to solar power: share someone else's.
pv magazine reported on 27 July 2026 that Croatia's first energy community is operating. The array sits on the volunteer fire brigade building in Spickovina, near Zabok in Krapina-Zagorje county. It is 32 kW now, with plans to double to 64 kW. The project is run by REGEA, the regional energy and climate agency for north-west Croatia. Poslovni dnevnik had reported on 3 July that sharing started on 1 June.
There are 17 members: volunteer firefighters, local residents, one micro-enterprise and the fire brigade itself. REGEA's Ivana Belic told pv magazine the output is not used behind one meter. It travels over the public grid to members' meters by a fixed allocation key, and each share is credited against that member's own use. Members expect bills to fall by roughly half. The City of Zabok co-financed around half of the investment. There is no on-site storage.
Energy sharing is new in Croatian rules. Distributor HEP ODS introduced the mechanism at the start of April 2026. RES Croatia says three energy communities are registered so far.
Analogy: it is a shared allotment. One plot, many families, and each takes a fixed share of the harvest home. Nobody owns the field alone.
Good: a working legal model with a named host, member count, size and sharing method, and a micro-business already inside it. That is a template for business parks and small firms on rented premises.
Bad: 32 kW is tiny. Roughly half off is the members' expectation, not a measured bill. No battery means shares only cover the hours the sun is up.
Ugly: this is a non-profit community model, and RES Croatia says several administrative barriers still stand. A larger company looking for cheap power will not find a commercial product here yet.
Source: pv magazine, 27 Jul 2026 - Croatia's first energy community begins sharing solar power; Poslovni dnevnik, 3 Jul 2026 - first electricity sharing between citizens in Zabok.