To reach their renewable energy goals, the EU Member States need a sustained expansion of new renewable energy sources (RES) generation units. In recent years, the investment in RES units in EU, ...especially PV plants, have been encountering new financing barriers, in particular due to dwindling national budgets available for supporting the RES expansion, leading to reduction of the Feed-in tariffs (FIT) and increasing the regulatory risk perception. A similar situation can be observed in the countries of South Eastern Europe (SEE), where PV expansion in some countries that already experienced a "PV boom" slowed down to a trickle, while in others the PV growth hadn't even begun due to tougher investment conditions. Among the ways to overcome the risk-related hesitance of the traditional financing institutions and spur the RES growth are also various alternative financing schemes, e.g. online crowdfunding platforms or energy cooperatives. In the paper, the case of energy cooperatives in Germany is described, showcasing the success of the cooperatives and their influence on energy system transformation. We present Croatia as the SEE country with the most experience in promotion and deployment of new RES projects through energy cooperatives. The country can serve as a model for other SEE countries to harness the innovative financing models, in particular the energy cooperatives, in order to stimulate the RES expansion.
