They will share electricity for peak consumption areas. The city to expand its photovoltaic capacity.

The potential for installing rooftop photovoltaic (PV) power plants is being leveraged not only by large enterprises, corporations, and households but also by the public sector. Authorities in major cities and smaller municipalities alike own numerous properties where solar panels can often be installed, effectively offsetting a portion of energy costs.

Beyond onsite generation and consumption, such electricity can be shared with other facilities within a given territory. Although energy sharing in Slovakia is not yet a dominant trend in energy supply, both the number of participating entities and the volume of shared energy are steadily increasing.

Energy sharing can be facilitated through energy suppliers (though, following an amendment to the Energy Act, they should no longer refer to this service as "sharing") or via the Energy Data Centre (EDC). By mid-last year, the EDC recorded 225 sharing groups with 1,500 consumption and feed-in points. As of February 2026, this has grown to nearly 1,300 sharing groups and over 5,100 delivery points. The volume of shared electricity is also rising, reaching its peak during summer months due to the prevalence of solar power.

Small Villages, Large Cities, and Regions

The news portal Energie-portal.sk has previously reported on energy sharing within local governments, which are among the most frequent participants in sharing via the EDC. For instance, the village of Lozorno shares electricity from PV panels on municipal rooftops and, through its energy community, offers other entities—including households with their own PV systems—the opportunity to join.

The village of Modrovka opted for a combination of photovoltaics, sharing, and battery storage. The battery system optimizes energy management by exploiting intra-day price differentials and powers several street lighting poles. Consequently, the village reduced the annual electricity costs for its kindergarten from €1,500 to just €200.

Michalovce has also installed PV panels, though they chose not to pursue the EDC sharing route. Solar sources were added to suitable buildings to generate electricity for multiple municipal sites. The city hall collaborates with the utility company SPP on these installations. The city expects onsite generation to reduce electricity costs by 40%, with annual savings reaching €5,000 for buildings equipped with PV. Any surplus electricity is utilised by the energy supplier.

Furthermore, the Prešov Self-Governing Region has established its own sharing group within the EDC, with the ambition of including all delivery points under the regional administration's management.

Žilina Scales Up Photovoltaics

Žilina is among the first cities in Slovakia to utilise rooftops for solar installations and energy sharing. The electricity is consumed not only within the host building but is also shared with other municipal facilities, such as the ice rink, the public swimming pool, and the city hall.

The municipal energy company recently added a new PV power plant. The investment, featuring 126 panels, cost the city over €73,000, with an estimated payback period of approximately eight years. This marks the third rooftop PV plant operated by the city. Total investment costs for the three solar sources amount to €289,000, funded through a combination of budget allocations and loans. Additional rooftop plants are expected to be commissioned in the near future.

Sharing for High-Demand Locations

"We want the energy we produce to serve the city as efficiently as possible. That is why our PV plants are interconnected within a sharing system. If electricity is not consumed directly in the building where it is generated, it is transferred to other municipal sites with high demand," says Mayor Peter Fiabáne.

The city considers the operation of photovoltaic plants to be viable from both an economic and ecological perspective. Last September, the PV system on a senior care facility produced 3.3 MWh of electricity, half of which was shared with the municipal swimming pool. This helped the sports facility save €175 (excluding VAT) on electricity that month.

During the same period, the PV plant installed at the ice rink generated approximately 11 MWh, all of which was consumed onsite. According to the city, the savings exceeded €2,200. The newest rooftop system on a kindergarten building produced 269 kWh of electricity this January.

Source: www.energie-portal.sk