Uncertainties for the community voucher model in the City of Poreč-Parenzo

Porec is a Croatian town with around 16.000 inhabitants. As a popular summer resort, its population triples during holiday season. And so do the energy needs. This is why the city administration is looking for sustainable means of generating energy, by involving, as much as possibe, the local stakeholders. Gordana Lalić from the public agency Parentium gave us an update on how the administration is opening energy projects up to citizens. Gordana explains how uncertain the implementation of the city’s unique and innovative “voucher model” has become. It was meant to allow citizens to participate in retrofits of heritage buildings. And still, Porec is looking ahead. The proof: It has signed up to the LIFE LOOP accreditation scheme.

Gordana shares the initial idea and the difficulties she and her colleagues encounter so far.

The voucher model idea

In collaboration with LIFE LOOP partner Green Energy Cooperative (ZEZ), the City of Poreč-Parenzo has tried to implement a ”voucher” community model pilot. It represents a replicable and a scalable community engagement model with an innovative financing scheme for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in the context of public building retrofits that are part of our cultural heritage.

This innovative and first ever model is centered around the participation of citizens in financing investments that improve the overall sustainability of public buildings through energy efficiency and renewables. Within the proposed model the citizens were said to participate by means of buying “value coupons” / “vouchers” that are issued by the public institution. In the Parentium community this would have been the kindergarten. This approach is referred to as the “voucher model”. As a financial return, the ”vouchers” would provide a discount in the form of future lower monthly fees that parents pay for their children attending the kindergarten. The “voucher model” retains money and value under the form of public services in the local community. The kindergarten benefits from local engagement, lower bills and a refurbished building with the latest technologies, one that complies to modern standards. Due to the fact that children stay in the kindergarten for 3 to 4 years max, and in order to make the model financially viable, the model financing scheme includes the Municipality as the important member of the voucher model community, providing the neccesary financing funds for closing the financial construction of the model.

Slowed down by unsupportive legislation

Unfortunately the unsupportive legislative context with long and burdensome administrative procedures and unresponsive Ministries (Ministry of Finance) is putting brakes to the project. Moreover, the Croatian transposition of the Clean Energy Package and the provisions for Energy Communities was done in such a poor and uncoordinated way that today (i.e. three years after introducing energy communities as a legal concept into national legislative files) Croatia still doesn’t have any functioning energy community in the true meaning of the word whatsoever., and other barriers encountered while trying to advance Parentium, the Parentium voucher model pilot is not developing and progressing as initially foreseen.

Close contact with the local community and neighbouring municipalities

However, in order to be ready for the actual launch of the voucher model (once the approach is confirmed by the Ministry) ZEZ and the City of Poreč-Parenzo have kept close contact with the local community by organising several meetings with the kindergarten and the parents of children attending the kindergarten, presenting the voucher model itself, the planned solar PV project, facilitated an open discussion, gathered the feedback about the potential improvements in the financial part of the voucher model itself to make it more appealing and motivating and gathered info about the potential interest in investment. After the final communication events, the parents were highly motivated to join the initiative and they could easily fund their part of the investment in small scale PV via ”voucher model”.

Croatia still doesn’t have any functioning energy community in the true meaning of the word whatsoever.

Gordana Lalic, City of Porec-Parenzo

Although, still, no confirmation from the relevant ministries has been received, we are continuously providing support and building relationships with other Municipalities. With that, we want to keep them motivated to adapt and try to replicate the ”voucher model” approach. We are also providing technical support for the development and implementation of any collective citizen action project. These can be –

• educational activities (Poreč Sunny info Days, Regional round tables),
• direct support to individual households that want to install the solar PV on their rooftops (Poreč Sunny office one-stop-shop),
• providing access to public roofs for the installation of solar PV and take on citizen participation therein, or
• foster direct participation of municipalities in cooperatives that want to develop and implement projects for sustainable energy.

Finally, the City of Poreč-Parenzo has developed all necessary procedures and administrative documentation for the ”voucher model” implementation that can become viable in the near future (waiting for the confirmation from the national Ministries).

NOTE TO OUR READERS: No matter how experienced your municipality is and what obstacles you may encounter: There is so much to gain in joining the accreditation scheme. You may want to understand where you stand, get more skills into your organisation or use the certificates to show others that you take this topic seriously. Sign up now!