In a post-industrial area of Budapest’s 8th district, Kazán Community House operates from the former offices of a heavy-machine factory, now transformed into a collectively owned hub for urban solidarity. This multi-layered “social engine” is home to a community daycare, an independent radio station, and various civil society organisations. Anchored by Gólya Cooperative, the worker-owned cooperative that rebuilt the space and runs its bar, café and concert venue, Kazán is much more than a workplace: it is a cultural destination where collective labour, inclusive culture and social infrastructure embedded locally meet under one roof.
Established in 2022, the Kazán Energy Community manages a 36 kWp solar panel system that generates income for a democratically governed fund. Using this fund for strategic insulation and shared saving measures, the nine member organisations have already reduced the building’s heating consumption by nearly half.
The project is managed through a tight-knit partnership between the Solidarity Economy Centre (SEC), which provides the strategic vision for sustainable energy models, and ACRED (the Alliance for Community Real Estate Development), the non-profit responsible for the democratic management and professional operation of the building.
In this interview, Eszter Úr, a dedicated organiser and associate at the Solidarity Economy Centre, explains how Kazán evolved from a vision of solidarity. She has since joined Acred (SZAKI), another organisation based within Kazán. She discusses the democratic process of managing photovoltaics, the social impact of reinvesting savings into the building’s infrastructure, and how their human-centred approach proves that energy independence and social justice can work hand-in-hand.
Can you tell us how your energy community started and what were your primary motivations?
Everything starts with the location. Kazán Community Centre is located in the 8th district of Budapest, one of the most diverse districts in the city. It has the city’s largest ratio of minority groups and is an area that is currently being gentrified very quickly.
The building itself, which we named Kazán (“boiler house”), reflects the area’s history; it was a formerly abandoned transportation manufacturing site. Its transformation grew out of the initiative of the Gólya Cooperative, an organisation which fosters the establishment of a self-sustaining solidarity economy through supporting and uplifting cooperatives. Gólya was previously located in a more central area of the 8th district, but their rents became too high and they had outgrown their small space. They decided to move towards the outskirts of the same district to buy their own place, but they didn’t want to do this alone.
They created a cooperative with other social organisations—including ACRED—and in 2019, they purchased an abandoned industrial site which needed extensive work. It remains in community ownership today. The motivation for collectively owning the building was to have a place they could not be priced out of. As the affordability and housing crises hit, it became harder and harder to find places where communities can work together and be together. The community ownership model gives us this affordable, stable space.
The Kazán Energy Community was established as a vital layer of this project. In Hungary, a policy called rezsicsökkentés (“utility cost reduction”) caps energy costs for households, but organisations and businesses are not covered by this. Consequently, organisations face much higher energy costs and are deeply affected by market fluctuations and infrastructural challenges. To protect our community, we had to move away from market logic. ACRED operates on the principle that housing and real estate should not be based on profit motivations, but should be needs-based: if an organisation or a person needs a place to live or work, that need should be met.
Could you tell us about the community at Gólya and Kazán Community House?
The community is at the heart of both Gólya and Kazán Community House. The organisations based at Kazán do not simply share a building—they function as a community, with members contributing to the running of the space according to their abilities and available time. This ranges from everyday tasks such as maintaining shared facilities to organising larger collective events, including the annual pre-New Year’s gathering that brings the organisations together before the holiday season.
Beyond the walls of the community house, Gólya and Kazán also work to strengthen local ties in Budapest’s 8th District. Through the *From Neighbourhood to Community* programme, they support the creation of neighbourhood groups that can respond to shared local issues and help foster a sense of belonging. Activities include communal meals, creative workshops, cultural events, programmes connected to the community garden, and public discussions on matters affecting local residents.
How would you describe the economic, social, and cultural background of the members of your community?
This is a complex question because there are so many different organisations active within Kazán. While the majority are NGOs, the variety is quite broad; for example, we host everything from a community radio station and a public policy research centre to a ceramic studio.
In general, most of our members could be described as intellectuals from middle or lower-middle-class backgrounds. However, because they work in the NGO or social sectors, they are often more exposed to economic crises than other middle-class groups in Hungary. Many live in more precarious conditions because their work is tied to social causes rather than high-profit industries.
At the same time, our community is more diverse than a single economic label suggests. What truly unites all of these different organisations and individuals is a shared commitment to solidarity and a dedication to working together in a community-oriented way.
How did you organise your learning process around energy? Did you educate yourselves or run any collective capacity-building sessions?
Our learning process was largely “learning by doing,” sparked by our project to install photovoltaics (PV). While we had long recognised the need for solar energy at Kazán, and we secured the means to do it through crowdfunding. This transition into becoming an energy community forced us to educate ourselves from the ground up.
Initially, technical knowledge was limited to a few interested individuals. However, we were faced with a challenging two-year bureaucratic delay between the installation of the panels and the moment they actually began producing power. During those two years, a core group of five or six people had to dive deep into the complexities of PV systems and energy management. This expertise eventually filtered out to the wider community as we established our Energy Efficiency Fund. This fund is now a major educational tool: we save money through the PV system, and the community democratically decides how to reinvest those savings into the building’s most problematic areas. Designing these democratic processes taught us just as much about community management as it did about energy.
The energy crisis following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine served as another intense period of capacity-building. It forced every member of the community to learn how to actively save energy. For example, a community member named Benu developed a smart heating system. It started as a simple response to high consumption, but by learning how to program room temperatures based on actual occupancy, we were able to significantly reduce our gas usage.
Can you tell us about the decision-making process for the energy efficiency fund?
The leadership for the energy community comes from the Solidarity Economy Center (SEC) and a dedicated Energy Task Force. This group brings together members from the Gólya Cooperative, ACRED, and the SEC who share a specific interest in energy. We prefer this task force model because it acts as a flexible working group; it allows us to build expertise and tackle technical projects without the need to create a new, rigid institution.
The energy fund is managed by a dedicated group, primarily composed of ACRED employees and others with specific expertise in energy issues. Because technical knowledge varies across the community, this management group acts as a specialised body that prepares professional suggestions for our plenary meetings, which occur every two months. We propose specific projects—such as installing monitoring thermostats or conducting energy audits—and provide the community with cost-benefit analyses and projected return-on-investment calculations.
While it would be ideal if every member were an energy expert, this structure allows us to be efficient while remaining democratic. It is important to note that the plenary meeting is not just a formality; the community is highly invested in these decisions. Members form their own opinions, debate the proposals, and sometimes even exercise their right to veto.
Ultimately, the power stays with the community. This is especially vital when a crisis hits. If an organisation within our building struggles to cover its costs, they can approach the fund for support. During the recent energy crisis, for instance, several organisations were unable to pay their utility bills. Rather than leaving them to struggle alone, ACRED and the community developed solutions to split the costs or extend payment timelines. We rely on these internal mechanisms of solidarity to ensure that our collective bills are paid every month, dealing with financial strain through a lens of mutual support rather than market logic.
What are some positive effects of your energy community outside of addressing energy needs?
One of the most significant impacts is how we have integrated energy management into our existing building management system, which is a deeply democratic institution. In many settings, people from different backgrounds do not have the same opportunities to lead or have their voices heard. At Kazán, our model ensures that everyone has the possibility to express their opinion and be truly listened to.
This culture of inclusion has actually grown stronger through the energy community. Energy is typically treated as a very technocratic, “expert-only” issue, but here, everyone’s perspective is welcome. It has also created a fascinating shift in representation. Many of the NGOs within our community are led by women or have a female majority. When these organisations engage with energy issues—a field that is traditionally male-dominated—it begins to change the landscape. Women are increasingly taking up space and becoming leaders in a field where we are typically not present. As more NGOs follow this path and become energy communities, we believe the gendered nature of the energy sector will truly begin to shift.
How does your energy community impact the energy poverty of your cooperatives?
The legacy of politics in the past decades is that civil society organisations and NGOs in Hungary face an incredibly complicated funding landscape. Most direct EU funds or civil-society grants are project-based and do not cover basic operational costs like utilities or rent. At the same time, state funding for NGOs is practically non-existent, making day-to-day survival an extreme struggle. Organisations that address social issues or work with vulnerable groups need stable spaces to operate, but securing the money for overhead is a constant challenge.
The impact of our energy community is largely found in how it eases this burden. For example, several organisations in our building work with children, including Roma children. While the energy community doesn’t directly affect the children themselves, it makes life significantly easier for the organisations that serve them.
We have children who come to the Gólya Cooperative after school several afternoons a week so they don’t have to spend that time on the street. The impact here is indirect but vital: by reducing utility costs and providing financial relief for these organisations, the energy community helps create a more stable, sustainable environment for the children who rely on these spaces.
Are the children who come to your building aware of the energy community, or are they involved in any energy-related learning activities?
Currently, the connection is still developing. However, one of the organisations in our building, Deviszont Közösségi Tér, which works with disadvantaged children in another district of Budapest, recently approached the Solidarity Economy Center (SEC) about a potential collaboration.
We see great potential for a joint program where we can talk with the kids about energy issues and climate change. Their approach is rooted in critical pedagogy, so the idea would be to engage the children in a way that helps them think critically about these topics. It would move beyond just technical facts to help them understand the broader social and environmental context of energy.
Have you noticed any changes in people’s behaviour around energy consumption since your energy community started operating? In what ways has the energy community shaped your community’s attitudes and mindset?
I wouldn’t say there has been a dramatic shift in behaviour, but people have definitely become more aware of their consumption. At the same time, we still have some funny situations. For example, my colleague Benu sometimes has to remind people: “The room is already at 20 degrees, and that’s the maximum the system can deliver in its current state.” Yet people keep setting their thermostats to 24 degrees, pressing the button and saying, “I want 24, I want 24,” without realising it is the building itself, and not a system issue, that prevents the temperature from getting higher. Overall, most people here are highly educated and have a basic understanding, but Benu monitors usage behaviour much more closely.
Beyond daily habits, there is a strong sense of shared pride in becoming greener through our energy community and the PV system. It has helped strengthen our community identity. What we have built is a strong example of a successful one-building community energy model. Because peer-to-peer energy sharing is legally not yet available restricted in Hungary, the building serves as a model for how community energy can operate under current laws.
What are the added values of the project beyond just the production of energy and the lowering of costs?
It is important to clarify that we didn’t actually lower the individual utility costs for our members. Instead, we all agreed to continue paying the same rates we did before the PV system was installed, but we divert the difference—the savings—into our Energy Efficiency Fund. This creates a self-sustaining cycle: the money generated from the electricity side is reinvested into the building to make it more efficient, which in turn lowers our gas consumption.
This model creates a collective benefit for every organisation in the building. As we improve our efficiency, we are considering an additional system—which I think our members would be very open to—where the savings from our reduced gas bills are also channeled back into the Energy Efficiency Fund. By pooling all of these savings together, the fund would grow much faster. The ultimate goal is to keep improving the building’s efficiency until, eventually, we could potentially detach from the gas grid entirely. This isn’t just about saving money; it’s about the long-term resilience and independence of our community.
Did the growth of your energy community lead to the creation of any direct or indirect jobs?
So far, we haven’t been able to create any direct jobs from the energy community itself. Our current positions are supported by grants, as the revenue generated by our energy system alone is not yet enough to employ anyone. This might change if the system were larger. For example, my long-term vision is to see our partner ACRED manage additional buildings or develop new sites, such as in the Ganz District, the surrounding industrial area. While direct electricity sharing between separate buildings (with different lot numbers) isn’t currently possible in Hungary, we could connect them through a shared financial model that unites multiple sites and communities. In such a scenario, there could eventually be a dedicated coordinator for the entire network.
However, the community does create indirect jobs through its investments. We used the savings accumulated in the Energy Efficiency Fund during its first year to insulate our inner courtyard, which was in very poor condition and required urgent repair. We hired professionals to carry out this work. In this sense, every energy-efficiency intervention we fund through our PV savings creates indirect employment. Each upgrade—whether past or future—contributes to job creation by directing our savings back into the local economy for professional services.
What are your short term and long-term goals for the future?
Our short-term goals focus on the Energy 4 All project, a Driving Urban Transitions Partnership transnational project we are part of in which our priority is to make our smart heating system even smarter. Until recently, we could only regulate temperatures by switching the entire system on or off. Through the Energy 4 All project, we have now invested in room-based adjustable thermostats, allowing us to control each radiator individually. We see this as a very strong investment and expect it to pay for itself within two years. We also use various sensors that monitor human behaviour, which helps us fine-tune the system even further.
In the medium and long term, we are focusing on larger energy-efficiency upgrades. Last year, we completed smaller insulation interventions in the parts of the building that were losing the most heat: we insulated the inner courtyard and a wall facing an unheated empty space. These smaller projects are now complete, so our next step is to save up for more substantial investments, such as replacing the windows and insulating the entire façade. Once these works are done—and as our gas consumption decreases and we save more—we may eventually be able to transition to an electric or heat-pump-based heating system.
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