How to share energy across the border? UWB lawyers seek solutions for the Czech Republic and Bavaria

Municipalities, companies, or energy communities in the Czech-Bavarian borderland want to share energy, but face conflicting rules. A new ENREGIO project led by the Faculty of Law at UWB aims to bridge them.

For a joint energy project, having energy and technical solutions available on both sides of the border is not enough. Differing laws, administrative procedures, or conditions for establishing energy communities can also be decisive. These very obstacles will be identified and described by lawyers from the Faculty of Law at UWB, together with the University of Bayreuth and UBT Future Energy Lab Wunsiedel, as part of the ENREGIO project. They will then advise municipalities and regions on how best to prepare for energy sharing in all respects.

The researchers will compare Czech, German, and European legislation, focusing on energy, administrative, civil, and commercial law. "The basis for our joint research will be a legal comparison of how the Czech and German electricity systems operate. Although both systems operate synchronously within the continental European grid, they differ in scale, operator structure, and the intensity of integration of decentralized renewable sources. One of the main goals of our project is to identify existing barriers to systematic cross-border cooperation by combining technical and legal analyses," says Monika Forejtová from the Faculty of Law at UWB.

Legal analyses will form one part of a broader project. At the same time, the partners will also assess technical, economic, and environmental conditions. Combining these insights will yield the PILOT model for cross-border energy cooperation, along with a final methodology containing recommendations for regional actors. This will serve as practical advice, procedural guidelines, and a methodological handbook for interested users, primarily intended for municipalities, public administration, businesses, energy communities, local initiatives, and other stakeholders.

The partners will continuously discuss proposed solutions with the professional public and regional actors through joint Czech-Bavarian workshops and expert meetings. "For us, this project is an important means to highlight the existing successes of the SWW Wunsiedel GmbH energy hub in the town of Wunsiedel, and above all, to share our best practices with interested stakeholders on both the Czech and German sides," says a representative of UBT Future Energy Lab Wunsiedel GmbH, a research institution founded by the University of Bayreuth.

In addition to the Faculty of Law at UWB and UBT Future Energy Lab Wunsiedel, the project involves the Institute for Sustainable Development, SWW Wunsiedel, Umweltstation Lernort Natur-Kultur Fichtelgebirge, Es Geht! Energiesysteme, and the Czech Photovoltaic Association (Institute of Photovoltaics and Electromobility). Associated partners include MAS Kraj živých vod, MAS Sokolovsko, the Kamenné Vrchy Municipal Association, and Hof University of Applied Sciences.