News — Slobodna Energija

News

What we are doing, and what we have learned.

29.08.2026

The New Site Is Live: A Lean Showcase for Open Hardware & Community Engineering

The site has been rebuilt from scratch: lean, 100% static, privacy-respecting, and dedicated to practical open hardware, solar experiments, and speech models.

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What is Slobodna Energija?: Slobodna Energija is an independent web project, open-source collective, and digital lab for energy autonomy, open hardware, off-grid nodes, and speech technologies. We are not a formal civic association or NGO — we are an open platform for research, technical prototyping, and sharing free knowledge.
Which projects are you working on?: We build practical hardware and software solutions: autonomous solar stations and off-grid server nodes, airborne sensor stations for coverage testing (LoRa), open Macedonian speech synthesis (TTS), speech transcription (STT), and agricultural automation tools. Read more
What are sprouts?: Sprouts are early-stage ideas in the initial design and exploratory phase. Each sprout defines a specific problem, an open-source technical approach, and pointers for collaboration. Once schematics and a working prototype are created, a sprout evolves into an active project. Read more
What are the solar edge nodes?: They are autonomous, low-power micro-servers powered entirely by solar panels and battery systems (solar UPS). They enable local hosting of websites, sensor telemetry, and digital services without relying on the commercial power grid or internet infrastructure. This website is designed to run directly on such a node.
What is the voice synthesis project?: An open-source project for synthesizing Macedonian speech from text (TTS). It uses custom phonetic transliteration so modern voice models can fluently and naturally pronounce Macedonian Cyrillic text. The site includes an interactive demo where you can test the model in real time. Read more
How does the Macedonian speech transcription work?: A local tool based on the Whisper model, tailored for recognizing spoken Macedonian from audio recordings (STT). It automatically generates clean text transcripts and timestamped SRT subtitle files, running entirely on your machine with guaranteed privacy. Read more
Where can I access the open telemetry data?: All telemetry and sensor readings from our prototypes are published on the "Data" page. Each chart includes technical explanations and direct download links to raw CSV files for open research and analysis. Read more
How can I get involved or collaborate?: There are no membership fees and no formal bureaucracy! We welcome anyone who wants to contribute code, hardware schematics, prototype testing, or locations for solar telemetry. Reach out via our "Join us" page or open an issue on GitHub. Read more
I have a roof or location for solar testing. What next?: Register your location on our "Join us" page by selecting "Location / solar test". We are always looking for real-world test sites to host experimental solar sensors, LoRa nodes, and micro-stations with open telemetry. Read more
How is this project funded?: The project is completely independent, self-funded, and volunteer-driven. We do not solicit funds for mere ideas, have no corporate sponsors, and charge zero membership dues. We build with open-source tools and affordable off-the-shelf hardware so knowledge remains free for everyone.
How do I get in touch?: The quickest way is via the form on the Contact page or by emailing [email protected]. You can also find us on GitHub for technical discussions and pull requests, as well as within the local hackerspace community in Skopje. Read more