EU Tracker – Local heating and cooling plans in Croatia
Summary
What is the status of the transposition of Art 25.6(EDD) and its implementation ?
Croatia is currently not well prepared for EED article 25.6. A new regulatory framework and the establishment of an adequate support framework will be needed.
Croatian municipalities are neither encouraged nor incentivised to draft local heating and cooling plans. New national legislation is therefore needed. Measures to decarbonise heating has been proposed in voluntary Sustainable Energy and Climate Plans (SECAPs) in the framework of the Covenant of Mayors initiative, but these plans have not included strategies based on spatial assessments. Croatan municipalities lack access to a proper support framework for developing heating and cooling plans, with an absence of technical and organisational guidance provided by the national government, no dedicated funding sources. Large efforts are needed to establish a comprehensive regulatory and support framework for local heating and cooling planning in this geographically diverse country.
Detailed assessment
The legal framework and the obligations
No incentive or obligation for municipalities to draft heating and cooling plans.
Overview of the legal frameworks per governance level in Croatia
| National | Croatia’s main energy and climate objectives are enshrined in its Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), submitted in 2019. The draft update submitted in 2023 sets a renewable energy share target of 47.1 % in the heating and cooling sector for 2030. As a transposition of the European Energy Efficiency Directive (article 14), the national government has drafted a comprehensive assessment of the potential for efficiency in heating and cooling. It includes information on local projects but does not include measures for local authorities. |
| Regional | There is an obligation for counties to adopt Energy Efficiency Action Plans on a three-year basis alongside annual energy efficiency plans. These plans include measures regarding heating but not a complete strategy to decarbonise their heating and cooling system. |
| Local | There is no obligation or incentive for cities or municipalities to draft LHCP. Larger cities (over 35 000 inhabitants) must, similar to counties, adopt (three-year) Action Plans and annual energy efficiency plans. Municipalities draft SECAPs with a particular emphasis on building decarbonisation and therefore integrate heating decarbonisation measures. But SECAPs are not mandatory and do not include a spatial and overall assessment of the heating systems. |
The support framework
A weak support framework available to local authorities.
Considerable efforts are needed to establish a strong support framework for local heating and cooling planning in Croatia. No technical and organisational guidance and support for municipalities to draft local heating and cooling plans is provided by the national government, and they lack access to dedicated funding sources. Municipalities face a shortfall on staff and skills on climate and energy issues, and are reliant on hiring external support for the drafting of climate and energy-related documents. Municipalities have with the exception of Zagreb, only access to aggregated energy-related geodata, which makes the task of proper heating and cooling planning resource-demanding and difficult.
Provided Support
| Technical and organisational | 1/5 | There is no technical framework such as guidelines from national authorities on how to draft local heating and cooling plans. Technical expertise to decarbonize district heating and increase the share of solar thermal and geothermal technologies for heating has mainly been provided to undertake specific projects (often funded by the EU), and not for strategic planning purposes |
| Financial | 2/5 | Municipalities and regional energy and climate agencies can apply for national and European funds via calls for projects for the drafting of their SECAPs or the modernisation of the distribution grid or heat networks, but without guarantees of results. There is no systematic funding support in sufficient quantity to draft detailed, integrated and strategic local energy plans. |
| Staff & skills | 1/5 | Most of the municipalities do not have energy and climate departments (expect for the biggest cities). In all municipalities, there is a critical lack of skills within their administrations to deal with the decarbonization of heating and cooling. Municipal administrations are consequently reliant on the expertise of regional energy and climate agencies and external contractors to undertake projects and tasks related to heating and cooling. |
| Access to data | 1/5 | Energy Suppliers have the obligation to share data on delivered energy (for heat and gas) with national authorities. This obligation is however poorly enforced as the data provided is often delayed and often insufficiently detailed. Local authorities also lack access to energy-demand data for buildings. Municipalities meanwhile often lack the capacity to collect and analyse local energy-related data, which has made them reliant on aggregated data for energy modeling. The capital Zagreb has however developed an Energy Atlas (GIS database and tool) with some detailed energy-related data for buildings, including their energy consumption, building type, number of occupants, energy refurbishment rate. |
