ZEZ

Promoting distributed self-production for local energy communities in Croatia

Area

City of Varazdin, northern Croatia

Participants

Households with PV financed by national initiative and supported by ZEZ Energy Cooperative and the City of Varazdin

Direct participants

100 households

Potential replicants in the area

270 households in the city of Varazdin.
1000 additional households in other Croatian cities.

Unique Features

  • Participating households are equipped with local PV systems for self-production and are members of a local Energy Cooperative
  • Measured impact and achievable benefits will be shared through the City communal company to all households in the area
  • Great replication potential to members of the Cooperative and applicants of the national call
  • Replication potential not only in the pilot area (City of Varazdin) but also in other Croatian cities which are already closely collaborating with ZEZ (City of Krizevci, City of Velika Gorica etc.)

Available infrastructure and tools

  • 100 households with local PV systems for self-production

New developments in NUDGE

  • Electricity smart-meters installed at participating households
  • Smartphone application for visualizing individual and aggregate consumption/production data

The focus will be on empowering energy communities through the use of local RES. This pilot will engage 100 households with local PV systems for self-production that are members of a local Energy Cooperative.

All of the households will be equipped with smart meters, providing for monitoring of PV production and self-consumption that will be communicated to end users through a smartphone application.

Half of the population (intervention group) will receive nudging interventions, encouraging them to undertake different actions to optimize own energy consumption, to monitor the effect on their total energy consumption and to evaluate the adoption of interventions and energy efficient behaviour.

In addition, participants will be able to compare own consumption/production data with other community members, while also understanding their contribution to the overall energy efficiency performance of the Cooperative.

Gathered data will also be shared through the City communal company to all other households in the area, to inform them on achievable benefits (energy, cost, investment payback time, etc.), towards encouraging more citizens to become prosumers and members of the Cooperative.

Other Pilots