LIFE LOOP – Local Ownership Of Power

Behind LIFE LOOP lies an incredibly skilled and committed multi-national team of over 30 people. We come from 8 countries and combine knowledge from different strands: energy cooperatives and cities, with expertise in the topic both on EU and local levels. It’s this diversity that helped us foster powerful city-citizen connections and turn collective ideas into lasting impacts. LIFE LOOP was coordinated by Energy Cities which was backed by the management group composed of RESCoop.eu, ZEZ and Electra Energy cooperative. Local and national on-the-ground action was driven by 6 cities and 5 energy cooperatives.

Zagreb, Croatia

Bistrita, Romania

Crete, Greece

LIFE LOOP started in three pilot areas: Zagreb, Bistrita and the island of Crete rolled out local campaigns to raise awareness and mobilise citizens for the generation of community-owned energy.

Zagreb

In Zagreb, the planned activities are about integrating community energy into the municipality’s new

The city started off with the idea of enabling community energy projects on municipal roofs and issuing green community bonds. Ultimately, it installed solar PV on public roofs and launched a
one-stop-shop for citizen, with support from ZEZ Green Energy Cooperative.

Key local partner: Energy cooperative ZEZ

Crete

The biggest energy community in Greece has considerably increased community renewables on the island through LIFE LOOP by mobilising municipalities and raising awareness through wider outreach to the general public.

Key local partner: Minoan Energy Community

Bistrita

The municipality in Roamnia focused on the activation of internal staff as well as training of homeowner associations, multi-appartment tenants and individual homeowners on the benefits of community-led retrofit and shared solar PV on
public, residential and privately-owned buildings.

Key local partner: Cooperativa de Energie

The three pilots shared their experience with Gabrovo in Bulgaria, Ussaramanna and Villanovaforru in Italy, Nicosia, Strovolos and Aradippou in Cyprus as well as Tulcea in Romania. These “satellites” followed the pilot activities and were supported in developing their own community energy roadmap, skills and projects. We also spread the community energy momentum further via associated partners in Albania,
Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia.