As part of the activities, it’s planned to organize the first regional workshop on the nZEB standard and a brokerage event in their countries.

At this event, contractors, shop owners, financial institutions, government representatives, building owners, decision makers, and all other interested citizens will be able to share their needs or offer their services.

Info points about the nZEB standard will be set up in DIY stores where equipment or materials are available to achieve the nZEB standard, and project partners will counsel interested citizens.

Furthermore, study trips/visits to existing buildings that are examples of good practice will be organized, and webinars about nZEB standards will be held.

Specialized training programs for contractors, designers, and public administration on the nZEB standard will soon be organized to familiarize the target groups with the advantages of nZEB buildings.

The partners’ meeting was held in the office space and research center of the partner Pro-Akademia, which consists of two buildings built according to the nZEB building construction standard.

This means that the building’s energy needs are almost entirely settled from RES.

A heat pump and a biomass boiler are used for heating, hot water is prepared using solar collectors, and photovoltaic power plants in both buildings and auxiliary facilities produce electricity.

The systems are managed by the BMS (Building Management System), which enables an optimal level of comfort throughout the year with the optimal use of renewable energy sources. Employees who drive to work in electric cars have a fast charging station at their disposal.

About the nZEB Ready project

The nZEB Ready project is co-financed from the Horizon2020 programme and brings together eight partners from six EU countries, while REA North is the only partner from Croatia. The project plans to answer three key questions: Why nZEB, who can deliver nZEB, and how to reach nZEB?

The project’s main goal is to increase the market’s readiness for the effective implementation of nZEB projects and to stimulate the demand for workers and experts who will have the necessary skills in the energy efficiency and sustainable construction field.

Objava Continued activities on the nZEB Ready project pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

The Ministry organized this OECD mission in cooperation with HAMAG-BICRO.

The mission aimed to exchange knowledge and experience with Croatian stakeholders so that the OECD could find an appropriate approach to procurement development corresponding to the Croatian system and specifics within the framework of defining future steps.

The managing director of the agency, Ivan Simic, and the project manager, Denis Premec, explained in detail to the representatives of the OECD mission what challenges the agency faced when participating in the Prominent MED project.

During that project, REA North procured innovative solutions for the energy renovation project of the Loptica kindergarten building in Koprivnica and received the Procura+ European award for public procurement of innovations in 2020.

Representatives of the OECD mission Matthieu Cahen, Sanda Jugo, and Masayuki Omote learned from REA North which operational solutions were applied in defining needs, market research, communicating with potential solutions suppliers, and the public procurement process itself.

At the meeting, opinions were also exchanged on improving policies that would more intensively support the future public procurement of innovations in Croatia.

Objava REA North shared its experience in the procurement of innovations to the OECD mission pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023, representatives from Croatia, Poland, Romania, Portugal, and Bulgaria attended the first of four online meetings of the nZEB Ready Cities Working Group.

The working group from Croatia included the City of Koprivnica and the City of Varazdin as they plan to build buildings according to the nZEB standard.

At the workshops, which will be held three more times in June, September, and January, city representatives will present their plans, the challenges they face when creating nZEB solutions, and the challenges of hiring workers familiar with this building construction standard.

You can read more about the nZEB ready project at this link.

Objava First nZEB Ready Cities Working Group meeting was held pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

To recap, the first workshop, entitled “Why nZEB?”, was focused on the basics of the nZEB building construction standard, and the second workshop, entitled “My career is nZEB”, was attended by Associate Professor Ph.D. Bojan Milovanovic from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb, who presented the students with his career of an expert in nZEB construction.

After introducing the students to the basics, the representatives of REA North Marija Somogji Loncaric and Damir Mandic, conducted a short knowledge test.

Students had to solve two real-life problems faced by employees of REA North during citizens’ consultations on the energy renovation of family houses.

With the help of the acquired knowledge, the students had to propose those measures for energy renovation of the family house that they believed would bring the most significant savings with the optimal investment price.

The results showed a great improvement among the students compared to the initial level of knowledge, which was the primary goal of these workshops.

During this gamification workshop, students had the opportunity to recognize the importance of teamwork when solving problems, improve their presentation skills and learn how to bring their solutions closer to investors.

In the end, students received certificates of participation.

In particular, REA North wants to thank the Architectural, Natural Science and Mining School Varazdin for the pleasant cooperation.

About the nZEB Ready project

The nZEB Ready project is co-financed from the Horizon2020 programme and brings together eight partners from six EU countries, while REA North is the only partner from Croatia. The project plans to answer three key questions: Why nZEB, who can deliver nZEB, and how to reach nZEB?

The project’s main goal is to increase the market’s readiness for the effective implementation of nZEB projects and to stimulate the demand for workers and experts who will have the necessary skills in the energy efficiency and sustainable construction field.

Objava Highschool students successfully passed the quiz about nZEB standard for the construction of new buildings pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

Associate professor, Ph.D. Bojan Milovanovic from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb, joined the workshop, which was held on February 9th. He presented his career as an expert in nZEB construction and shared with students his reasons why he decided to work in that field.

He talked about nZEB construction, i.e. the knowledge and skills needed to direct their careers following the market’s needs.

He also emphasized the importance of the cooperation of all professions and lifelong education in sustainable construction, given that technological progress enables the use of new and better materials and systems.

At the workshop, particular emphasis was placed on women’s opportunities in the sector, and prof. Milovanović presented the successes of his colleagues and students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, of which there are more and more.

About the nZEB Ready project

The nZEB Ready project is co-financed from the Horizon2020 programme and brings together eight partners from six EU countries, while REA North is the only partner from Croatia. The project plans to answer three key questions: Why nZEB, who can deliver nZEB, and how to reach nZEB?

The project’s main goal is to increase the market’s readiness for the effective implementation of nZEB projects and to stimulate the demand for workers and experts who will have the necessary skills in the energy efficiency and sustainable construction field.

Objava Highschool students from Varazdin learned about careers in nZEB pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

The workshop started with a short knowledge test, which was used to determine the initial level of knowledge of students who attend high school programs in the field of construction. The students are familiar with nZEB terminology, but there is a big problem in applying what has been learned to practical examples, which will be tried to change during the workshop.

REA North representatives Marija Somogji Loncaric and Damir Mandic explained to the students the principles of nZEB construction, methodology, design guidelines, and example of good practice in City of Varazdin, the new student dormitory, which is classified as an nZEB building.

In addition to the educational workshop, the transfer of knowledge from university students to high school students was also held. Representatives of the student association SUPEUS briefly presented the association’s work to the students and why nZEB is the future of construction through  “peer-to-peer” transfer of knowledge and experience about nZEB.

The presentation’s conclusion included inviting the students to develop their careers in the nZEB direction.

Next activity of the “Why nZEB?” workshop will be held on February 9. Prof. Ph.D. Bojan Milovanovic from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb, will present what his nZEB career looks like and the projects he worked on for the students.

Through the last activity of the workshop, which is scheduled for February 13, students will try to apply the knowledge gained during the workshop using a real-life example.

About the nZEB Ready project

The nZEB Ready project is co-financed from the Horizon2020 programme and brings together eight partners from six EU countries, while REA North is the only partner from Croatia. The project plans to answer three key questions: Why nZEB, who can deliver nZEB, and how to reach nZEB?

The project’s main goal is to increase the market’s readiness for the effective implementation of nZEB projects and to stimulate the demand for workers and experts who will have the necessary skills in the energy efficiency and sustainable construction field.

Objava Representatives of REA North introduced nZEB standard for the construction of new buildings to high school students in Varazdin pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

At this workshop, students will learn about the nZEB standard for the construction of new buildings (nZEB – nearly Zero Energy Buildings), and it will consist of 2 activities:

• introductory lecture on nZEB
• a lecture by a student from the Zagreb association SUPEUS who will talk about their activities in the field of energy efficiency

Another workshop is planned for February 9th, in which people with extensive experience working in energy efficiency and nZEB will talk to students about nZEB, so that future generations of experts will be familiar with the challenges that await them.

This is a continuation of the activities on the project, whose main goals are to enhance the market readiness to implement quality nZEB projects as much as possible and to stimulate the demand for skilled workers and experts in the field of energy efficiency and sustainable construction.

Both workshops aim to teach students new construction trends in a fun way and prepare them for the labor market.

About the nZEB Ready project

The nZEB Ready project is co-financed from the Horizon2020 programme and brings together eight partners from six EU countries, while REA North is the only partner from Croatia. The project plans to answer three key questions: Why nZEB, who can deliver nZEB, and how to reach nZEB?

The project’s main goal is to increase the market’s readiness for the effective implementation of nZEB projects and to stimulate the demand for workers and experts who will have the necessary skills in the energy efficiency and sustainable construction field.

Objava High school students from Varazdin will learn about the nZEB building construction standard pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

With it, cities and municipalities confirmed their commitment to affordable and clean energy in their local communities.

The cities and municipalities we supported contributed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, a goal set by the EU that you can read more about here.

With this goal in mind, we developed a Joint Action Plan for Energy and Climate Sustainable Development (Joint SECAP) and four SECAPs.

Supported by the Climate Action Zlatibor project financed from the EUKI program, seven municipalities from Koprivnicka Podravina (municipalities of Legrad, Delekovec, Hlebine, Gola, Novigrad Podravski, Peteranec, and Koprivnicki Ivanec) developed its Joint SECAP, which opened the possibility to apply for certain projects and withdraw funds from national and EU sources.

This will make it easier for them to implement measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Additionally, we created four SECAPs for three cities and one municipality (City of Beli Manastir, City of Ivanec, City of Bakar, and Municipality of Jelenje), which received co-financing from the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund.

This year, we will raise energy planning to an even higher level. As part of the EUCityCalc project funded by the Horizon 2020 program, together with the lead partner Energy Cities and nine other partners across Europe, we will create and establish a tool for long-term energy planning that will enable energy and climate predictions until 2050.

For additional information on the possibilities of creating energy and climate planning documents, contact info@rea-sjever.hr.

Objava REA North helps cities and municipalities to become greener pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

It is a project that aims to promote energy efficiency and increase citizens’ awareness of climate change using Augmented Reality (AR) content.

Representatives of the University of Pécs, the City of Koprivnica, the Development Agency from Pécs, and representatives of REA North all attended this conference as holders and partners on the project.

Other than them, representatives of Equinox, MANIC, and InoTeq also attended the conference and held presentations on the possibilities of applying augmented reality through their practical experiences.

The representative of REA North, Zvonimir Perko, presented the main goals and activities carried out during this project.

– We installed augmented reality content at 14 locations in the City of Koprivnica. These are locations that, in reality, already have some content that is connected to some form of energy efficiency solution. Through augmented reality, we wanted to give citizens more information.

For example, in front of a school in Koprivnica that has a photovoltaic power plant, we set up augmented reality content that provides citizens with more information about the sun, solar energy production, the cost-effectiveness of photovoltaics… We also provided special prizes for citizens who visit all the locations, Perko explained.

So, regardless of whether the project has ended, citizens can still enjoy research and AR content at the locations shown on the map below.

If you are interested in getting into augmented reality, look at the picture below, and find all the instructions for downloading and using the application.

The project “Setting up cooperation of GREEN Communities with Augmented Reality Assisted living labs” (Green Aura) is financed by Interreg V-A Hungary-Croatia Co-operation Programme 2014-2020., lasted 24 months, and its total value is EUR 270,134.45.

Objava The final conference of the Green AURA project was held in Koprivnica pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.

In partnership with the University of Pécs and the Development Agency Pécs, progress on the project implementation and progress so far have been discussed, along with challenges and activities planned until the end of the project.

As a follow-up to the project meeting, representatives of REA North and City of Koprivnica demonstrated three of the city’s 14 locations with the augmented reality game.

The visited locations were in front of High School Koprivnica (content related to wind energy and wind farms), University North (heat pumps), and Enter building (nZEB).

About the Green AURA project

A series of activities is developing during 20 months in collaboration with the University of Pécs, the Development Agency Pécs, and the City of Koprivnica to expand green “living labs”, open living laboratories that incorporate modern technology and augmented reality elements.

The goal is to expand Koprivnica’s “living lab” and present it as a green, energy-efficient city. In this project, the entire city serve as a training ground for creating educational content on energy efficiency, environmental protection, and climate change.

Objava REA North hosted 7th project meeting of Green AURA project pojavila se prvi puta na Regionalna energetska agencija.