A renewable energy community that strengthens the weak power grid in a remote Slovenian village

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Narrative

Financed by the Horizon 2020 program, in the Slovenian municipality of Luče a renewable energy community was established to increase the local self sufficiency with clean energy and increase the security of supply in this remote mountain valley. Before the project, Luče was a typical case of a rural low voltage network with a weak and unstable connection to the medium voltage grid. Luče often encountered power failures and the weak grid limited the integration of renewable energy sources, as the voltage during the day rised above the local limitations.These problems could be overcome with a mixture of community and household scale batteries, new energy management systems, EV charging, and further solar power plants. Besides the local community the project included the University of Ljubljana, the local distribution system operator and a national energy company as partners.

Financial data

H2020: the whole project had a budget of 6.42 mio. € (5.43 mio. € from EC). Of this only a small part was used for the pilot site Luče.

Recommendations

This project highlights that it often pays off to capitalise on the co-benefits of climate change mitigation projects (like in this case the strengthening of weak remote power grids), which make such projects economically viable and contribute to sustainable development more broadly. Moreover, it is recommended to use research and demonstration projects (and funding) strategically to create knowledge and experiences for implementing projects that are beneficial from a socio-economic perspective and require little additional public funding to become viable.