December success story: A pioneer cooperative tackling energy poverty in Slovenia inspires its community

Community energy is key to action on the climate crisis. It can empower people, boost local economies, and reinvigorate communities. Community-led initiatives play an important role in the transition towards a 100% renewable and just energy future. Success stories of community energy projects can be found all over Europe. At REScoop.eu we want to highlight these stories to further accelerate the movement towards a cleaner and democratic system.

This month we travelled to Hrastnik, a town in the Sava Valley in Slovenia, birthplace of the first energy community in the country, a cooperatively-owned solar power plant that is inspiring many to follow suit.

The city of Hrastnik has a rich mining and industrial history. Since 2022, it’s also the birthplace of the first citizen’s energy cooperative in the country: Zeleni Hrastnik (Green Hrastnik). The cooperative’s new solar plant, installed on the roof of the primary school, supplies electricity to the school, 16 homes, the town hall, a swimming pool, a grocery store and two local companies. All consumers collectively own the solar plant, expecting to save around 30% on their electricity bills in the first years of operation while the loan is repaid – after which savings could double.

Since the cooperative took off, the community of Hrastnik has shown nothing but enthusiasm and support. The follow-up project – a solar plant on the local health center – is so popular it had to turn people away. The initiative won the SozialMarie prize for social innovation, a few mayors are working with the municipality to replicate the model, and people from all around the country call to ask how they can join or set up a similar scheme. We wanted to find out more, to understand the ingredients of Green Hrastnik’s success.

The idea of setting up an energy cooperative first came from a green NGO: Focus. As members of European environmental networks, they knew EU legislation was opening new legal avenues for citizen renewable energy projects, and were inspired by positive examples from abroad. Boštjan Remic, project coordinator in the organisation, said: “We wanted to set up a community power plant that would be like a pilot, a trailblazing project, because Slovenia is still in the early stages of developing this model.” Their idea caught the interest of an important ally: the mayor of Hrastnik.

Marko Funkl is a well-connected and popular public official, who expressed enthusiasm from the start. He had experience in setting up a cooperative himself, and knew the potential of this model to improve people’s lives. An influential actor in Hrastnik, with close ties to other mayors, he was instrumental in driving the energy cooperative and making its benefits known. “There was always a common goal, we were always pushing the project in the same direction, it was an important part of the success,” Boštjan explained.

From the beginning, the project was codesigned with residents through workshops and regular communication with residents. Boštjan details the different benefits of this approach: “When you have a bottom-up approach, you can benefit from people’s knowledge – that was impressive to see. You could feel the engagement of residents when they were sharing what they knew would be useful for the project. You’re creating a sense of belonging, and when you have a strong collective, you can overcome all obstacles.”

Another important benefit of involving residents from the start is building trust, which is crucial to overcome challenges. One such difficulty came up with the swimming pool: their high energy consumption complicated their involvement, but through open-hearted discussions, a solution that worked for all was found. The benefits of a bottom-up approach are so clear that Focus is adapting processes to involve the residents more. While Focus and the municipality continue to manage the cooperative’s daily activities, residents are being supported to take on more active roles, workshops have been replaced by open discussions, and residents were involved in choosing a financial plan for the second power plant.

The residents’ main source of interest was the affordable and stable electricity prices that community-owned solar power could provide. The Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered important price fluctuations in Slovenia, and despite a price cap, people felt general uncertainty and anxiety. One member of the cooperative explicitly stated that independence from existing energy suppliers was a key consideration for him. “People’s number one priority was understanding: is this going to help me with the cost of energy or not? Every time I speak to someone, it turns out this is the most important thing on their mind,” Boštjan noted.

Energy poverty is also prevalent in the area – and the cooperative wanted to benefit these households in particular. Community building helped them figure out who to reach: they quickly realised supporting pensioners was particularly important. To ensure lower income households could participate, their initial financial contribution for the power plant was covered from the cooperative's account, while they continue to pay the monthly fee to the cooperative. Although these mechanisms made the project more complex, social equity was a central value for the cooperative: like many other initiatives, they see community energy as a long term solution to energy poverty.

The path to build Green Hrastnik wasn’t without difficulty. A lack of legal clarity initially complicated the involvement of the municipality, and connecting to the grid proved to be an issue as electricity suppliers are no friends of communal self-consumption. New challenges are emerging, as changing legislation from net metering to net billing could make energy cooperatives less advantageous financially, prompting Focus to lead advocacy work and open discussions with smaller suppliers to find solutions.

Despite these twists and turns, the appetite is there, and the founders of the cooperative hope the momentum will lead to the creation of many new projects. Boštjan summarised his takeaways from years of work on Green Hrastnik: “People know there are ecological issues, but they feel they cannot solve them, and worry green projects could make their lives harder. But here we have a positive example of a just, renewable project, benefiting the people in every sense, financial, social, ecological. It’s a concrete example that we want to emphasise.”