On Magnolija square in Bitola, the Macedonian Centre for Climate Change held a Solar Fair - an event where citizens could see, touch and ask how generating electricity from the sun actually works. Not a presentation in a conference hall, but open-air stands in a place people walk past anyway.

The central concept being promoted is the prosumer - a household that simultaneously produces and consumes its own electricity, returning the surplus to the grid.

The number that settles the dilemma: 7 to 11 years

What interests people most in stories like this is not the technology but when the investment pays for itself. According to what was presented at the fair, the payback period is seven to eleven years, depending on consumption habits.

That is a realistic range, and it is good that it was given as a range rather than as a single promise. Photovoltaic panels, storage batteries and getting the paperwork past the institutions - all of it goes into the calculation.

Filip Stojanovski of the Centre for Climate Change explained the motive simply: people can install solar panels at home, generate electricity for their own needs, and return what they do not use to the grid. That way, he says, citizens become independent, costs fall and the state gets some help.

Not just panels

The fair also presented solutions we rarely get to see here: a solar oven, a thermal solar collector for hot water, and electricity generated by an active bicycle - pedalling as a turbine.

The last one sounds like a demonstration for children, and it probably was. But displays like that are exactly what makes the difference, because they connect an abstract concept to something you can watch working.

Why Bitola, and why now

The choice of city is not accidental. Bitola is the city that has paid the price of coal for decades through the REK Bitola plant - in its air, in its health, and in economic dependence on a single source. A conversation about alternative sources carries a different weight there than in any other city.

The caravan continues through other Macedonian towns. The project is part of an energy transition initiative co-financed by the European Union.

Whether seven to eleven years is an acceptable horizon for a household depends on how much that household can put down today. That is the next question - and it is one the fair cannot answer.