Foto: Jonas Matyassy
The citizen energy initiative ZEZ Sun has recently been recognized with two prestigious awards: the SozialMarie 2025 Award for Social Innovation and the 2024 Green Building and Sustainable Built Environment Annual Award for “Project of the Year.”
SozialMarie 2025 – Award for Social Innovation
ZEZ Sun was selected from among 400 applications from Central and Eastern Europe for its pioneering model of citizen-owned renewable energy. The project established Croatia’s first solar power plant entirely owned by citizens, installed on the roof of the City Market in Križevci.
By transforming public rooftops into shared sources of solar energy, this project turns clean energy into a collective social good and citizens into true stakeholders of the energy transition. – SozialMarie jury.
Green Building Council Annual Award – Project of the Year 2024
ZEZ Sun was also honored by the Croatian Green Building Council and the Croatian Association of Thermal Facade System Manufacturers with the “Project of the Year” award.
This recognition from the professional sustainable building sector highlights the role of ZEZ Sun as a model of community-driven energy transition in Croatia and beyond.
“The solar panels themselves are nothing new, but what’s innovative is how we used them as a tool to unite our local community and enable citizens to jointly invest in their own energy” said Mislav Kirac, Manager of ZEZ Sun. “Both these awards are a powerful recognition of citizen interest in producing their own energy and of our social innovation. I hope this is only the first citizen-owned power plant in Croatia, as for example, in Austria, there are more than 2000 of them.”
Local Community Fund
The ZEZ Sun plant, with a capacity of 200 kW, is co-owned by 127 citizens, of whom one third come from local Križevci area, and all are members of the ZEZ Sun energy community. Owners collectively decide on the use of their produced energy and the allocation of surplus revenues through a dedicated “Community Fund” that reinvests benefits locally into projects helping local community development and diminishing energy powerty.
These awards validate ZEZ Sunce as both a technological success and a social innovation—a living example of how citizens can be empowered to actively participate in the energy transition. Learn more about ZEZ Sunce and citizen energy here.
The realization of the first citizen-owned solar power plant was made possible through the LIFE LOOP project, funded by the European Union’s LIFE Programme for Environment and Climate Action, Clean Energy Transition (LIFE-2021-CET).
