Lessons from Slovenia
Establishing an Energy Community in Postojna: A Key Step Towards Local Energy Self-Sufficiency
The Municipality of Postojna is moving forward with the establishment of its first energy community, linked to the construction of the new high-efficiency sports hall at SGLZŠ Postojna.
The hall will provide 1,330 m² of net usable sports surfaces (total gross area 2,145.57 m²) and is designed as an energy-efficient building. To ensure energy neutrality, the building will host a rooftop solar power plant with a total capacity of 191 kWp, of which 66 kWp will be owned by the Municipality of Postojna.
This municipal share of the photovoltaic installation is the key driver for setting up the energy community, which will bring together:
SGLZŠ Postojna,
several public institutions in the municipality,
and the Municipality of Postojna itself.
The energy community will enable optimised use of locally produced renewable electricity, strengthen cost efficiency and enhance the resilience of public infrastructure.
Strengthening Regional Cooperation: RECET Workshop with RDA Zeleni Kras
In November 2025, the Municipality of Postojna hosted a dedicated RECET workshop, organised in cooperation with the RERURAL project led by the Regional Development Agency Zeleni Kras (RDA Zeleni Kras).
The workshop focused on presenting current status of a CET plan and gathered input and suggestions for:
a) finalisation of the plan
b) input for needs and expectatios for capacity buiding events
c) promoting energy communities
d) advancing knowledge on energy literacy for general public
Delay in the Preparation of the CET: Data Collection Challenges
The preparation of the Comprehensive Energy Transition (CET) plan for the Municipality of Postojna has been delayed due to complex data acquisition processes.
The main barriers include:
inconsistent or incomplete data on local heat supply systems,
jurisdictional challenges between operators,
administrative constraints in accessing relevant datasets.
Despite these obstacles, the municipality is actively working to secure all necessary information to ensure a robust and comprehensive CET.
Stakeholder Engagement
To address project barriers and drive RECET activities forward, the Municipality of Postojna has conducted extensive engagement with:
key municipal decision-makers,
technical staff and sectoral departments,
local institutions and utility providers,
RDA Zeleni Kras experts,
and other relevant stakeholders.
These targeted meetings and consultations have been crucial for overcoming data barriers, preparing the RECET workshop, refining the energy community concept and ensuring coordinated progress on the CET plan.
Development of Capacity Building Course for Public Officials
As one of main obstacles in CET planning and uptake of Renwable energy sources (RES) and Energy efficiency (EE) measures, is a lack of awareness of benefits on one hand, and on the other, a lack of knowledge on the side of public officials, to integrate RES and EE measures in their daily work routine. Therefore a training course with comprehensive overview ad practical application is under development. We have currently got the first draft, from which we will develop a final version.
Municipality of Postojna faced setback in the CET Plan development. On one hand we faced challenges with data acquisition and the other, a lack of interest from stakeholders.
The approach Postojna applied was to seek broader regional support and seek for complementary projects and initiatives to mobilise and attract more stakeholders to the process. During the process it became clear that the lack of awareness and especially practical knowledge for RES and EE uptake is the key factor for delays we were facing. The next few months were dedicated to individual meetings with various stakeholders in the municipality and project representatives to identify common interest and areas where we could gain input for CET.
We identify a topic or approach that would be of interest to broader stakeholder audience, namely establishment of Energy community or a cooperative, first from the side of public institutions but gradually opening it also to all interested stakeholders. This community would serve as catalyst for CET implementation, offering access to practitioners and RES and EE solutions. To further the uptake a training course for public officials is under development and will be implemented in early 2026.