On Tuesday, August 23, 2022, Regional Energy Agency North presented the project One Sun Connecting North and South in the Enter – the incubator of creative industries.
This project aims to increase electricity production from solar energy in public sector facilities in the Republic of Croatia. It is unique because the partnership includes Regional Energy Agency North as the lead partner, 16 Croatian cities and municipalities, the Varazdin Geotechnical Faculty of the University of Zagreb, and the University of Stavanger Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Energy and Petroleum from Norway.
Mayor of the City of Koprivnica Misel Jaksic, the representative of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway in the Republic of Croatia Homma Latif, the representative of the Ministry of Regional Development and Funds of the European Union Mislav Kovac, and the director of the Regional Energy Agency North Ivan Simic attended the welcome speech.
Managing director Simic said on this occasion: “A year ago, when we met with the invitation from the program, we saw that somehow we had to unite our forces because this was a program that somehow favored large projects. Given that we did not have enough power within our borders that we wanted to engage, we asked ourselves, why not apply the logic of unified public procurement in electricity to this project as well? And who is a better partner for us than partners with whom we have already cooperated? We were pleased that, from the initial 350 kW that we initially wanted to engage, we rolled up to 830 kW. We are extremely proud that we have made available a program inaccessible to small municipalities in the surrounding area. With this project, we connected the north and south of Croatia, but we also connected the north and south of Europe.”
In the end, he thanked with the words: “I thank the founding cities for allowing us to go beyond the limits of the framework, I thank all the partners who were open to cooperation, and of course, a many thanks to my team who did not spare any effort in the last 16 months.”
About the project
The One Sun Connecting North and South project aims to increase electricity production from solar energy and strengthen cooperation between Croatian and Norwegian subjects of the public and private sectors and the academic community.
The value of the project is €1,004,000, of which more than €853,000 is non-refundable. Investment costs amount to more than 776 thousand euros, which refers to the construction of solar power plants.
The project will result in an estimated annual production of 980 MWh and a reduction in annual CO2 emissions of 155 tons.
Implementing pilot projects to install integrated solar power plants on 29 public buildings in 16 cities and municipalities in Croatia will directly increase the production of electricity from solar energy and result in a reduction of CO2 emissions.
The facilities where the pilot projects will be implemented include schools, kindergartens, colleges, sports halls, and other public buildings.
Watch the full video of the One Sun Connecting North and South project Kick-off conference here.