REGEA: Investment Factory – Digital Investment Platform

In 2019, the North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency (REGEA) launched an initiative to create an innovative digital investment platform in collaboration with SAP, a multinational software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations used by over 150-million cloud users. The main goal of the platform is to connect investors and owners of buildings with suitable rooftops, who are also electricity buyers. The platform defines contractual relationships in a secure and transparent manner and enables the aggregation of many single projects into investment packages. The concept works regardless of borders – investment packages can be matched with projects from different countries.

Ultimately, the platform would provide investment opportunities for large institutional investors, such as pension and investment funds and also directly for citizens. The goal of the project is to apply all the benefits of digital technology and the 21^st century way of thinking into the sustainable energy world. The investment value of the first projects to be listed will be higher than 1.5 million Euros, and it is expected that by the end of 2019, the investment portfolio of the platform would exceed 20 million Euros. The platform currently only focuses on solar energy (photovoltaic power plants). However, at a later stage, it will be also used for other projects which have the potential to generate income or financial savings.

One of the projects financed through this investment platform has been the installation of a photovoltaic system on the General hospital Zabok rooftop – an innovative example of cooperation between public and private body where the private entity is responsible for assembly of PV modules and for delivering electrical energy to the hospital for nine years. The hospital, during contractual commitment with a private partner, already has a 10% lower cost for the amount of kWh the PV system produces but, after nine years of the contract, the PV system will be under their ownership and they will have almost 500.000 kWh of free electrical energy. The installed capacity of PV’s is 470 kW and the investment is 250.000 Euros.