The northern town of Koprivnica is in the vanguard of green building in Croatia, followed by Zadar, Osijek, Sveta Nedelja and other towns.
The list of towns with passive houses has been growing by the year, but low-energy housing renovation is still in its beginnings, the head of the Passive House Croatia Consortium, Ljubomir Miscevic, has told Hina.
The Passive House Days event was held for the seventh consecutive year at Zagreb's Faculty of Architecture in early November, featuring lectures on the benefits of green building and use of low-energy construction materials.
The event, attended by experts from Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Austria, Germany, Turkey and Greece, was also held for the first time in Koprivnica, Zadar, Osijek and Zminj.
Speaking of green building in Croatia, Miscevic singled out Koprivnica, where he said three passive apartment buildings had been built, which was a rare example not only in Croatia but in the wider region as well.
The town's plan for energy-sustainable development envisages the construction of a total of seven passive apartment buildings and 12 houses, Mayor Vesna Zeljeznjak said, adding that construction work on a low-energy school would start soon.
Local officials say that they plan to make the town energy independent by 2025.
The northern Adriatic regions of Istria and Primorje are not lagging behind in terms of passive housing construction either, but mostly thanks to private investors. "Local authorities try to encourage passive and low-energy housing construction with tax breaks, but contractors are generally still penalised for every inch of thermal insulation because bigger gross volume means more expensive building permits, and the situation is similar with licences for the use of underground water," says Miscevic.
As for the coastal city of Zadar, a tender will soon be published for the energy-efficient renovation of apartment buildings. A project called i-scope will soon make it possible to calculate, by clicking on a computer mouse, the energy potential of roofs.
Strizivojna, Begovo Razdolje, Cazma, Buzet and Gornji Stupnik are only some of the towns and communities where comfortable, well-aired passive, low-energy family houses have been built, but people living in apartment buildings, too, have the opportunity to benefit from low-energy living if they decide to refurbish their buildings in line with low-energy standards.
The national association of apartment owners has been preparing a brochure with information on the energy renovation of apartment buildings so as to encourage their occupants to invest in their renovation, the more so as space heating and cooling and water heating account for 70% of the energy consumed by an average household.
All of these efforts contribute to the EU's common goal of reducing, by 2020, greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20% compared to 1990 levels, increasing energy from renewables by 20% and increasing energy efficiency by 20%.