The Olot City Council, capital of the Garrotxa region in Catalonia, has just launched the first renewable trigeneration air conditioning network. It has been inaugurated by the president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont. The system, which supplies heat, cold and electricity in the center of Olot and has an automated intelligent control system, it has been executed by a Temporary Union of Companies of Gas Natural Fenosa and Wattia.
The project makes this city of La Garrotxa the first in Spain with a trigeneration system for renewable energies: the system combines technology from geothermal, photovoltaic and biomass. According to the company, «two factors make Olot the ideal location to develop this pioneering project: first, it is an area technologically involved in energy sustainability and, second, the municipality has a dense forest mass ».
The network serves a total of 7 equipments: the old Sant Jaume Hospital (the Sant Jaume residence and the commercial premises), the La Garrotxa Regional Museum, the Caritat, the Municipal Market, the Montsacopa residence, the Casal de la Gent Gran of the municipality and Can Monsà. The hot and cold air conditioning network has an approximate length of 1.800 meters that allow air conditioning of the 40.000 square meters of surface of the buildings to which they are connected.
The new hot and cold infrastructure will save every year to the citizens of Olot the equivalent of 750 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, an amount that 290 hectares of forest should absorb, and will also reduce the energy bill.
«Taking advantage of the works of the new Olot Market, they built 24 geothermal wells in the basement of the square, and work began on the design of the installation of the photovoltaic solar panels and the Energy Room, located in the old facilities of the Olot Hospital ». In this room -continues the Consistory-, two boilers have been installed biomass of 450 and 150 kilowatts of powerrespectively three geothermal pumps of sixty kilowatts each, two accumulators of hot water of 8.000 liters each, "as well as the system of impulsion and control of the network that supplies energy to a total of 7 equipments". The City Council estimated a saving of around 10% compared to the cost of current non-renewable energy sources.
Sum of efforts
As explained by the mayor of Olot, Joseph Maria Corominas, «This initiative has been possible thanks to a sum of efforts, and we are very proud of the effort made, which has allowed us to launch a single network at the state level ”.
Villaseca has assured that for the energy company it is important to bet on the Energy Efficiency "And count on the collaboration of public initiatives in their planning and development", an opinion shared by Comino, who added that the project's intention is to expand this type of technology. The latter has defined Wattia as a «expert company in automated management of networks, as well as in the integration of their different energy systems.
According to Mr. Comino, “after having overcome the technological challenge of the EspaiZero from Olot, the first building 100% energy self-sufficient from Spain, the will was to expand the application of know-how representing this cutting-edge network control technology to power the way most efficient possible the buildings in the city center ”. The project itself, where Gas Natural Fenosa has invested one and a half million euros, is included in the Catalonia Energy and Climate Change Plan 2012-2020.
Wattage
Wattia is a company specialized in energy efficiency improvement systems. As mentioned before, it was who designed the EspaiZero building (Olot) in 2014. This became the first and only workspace in all of Europe capable of being energy self-sufficient, thanks to use of renewable energy such as geothermal, solar and wind energy
Gas Natural
Gas Natural Fenosa is a private Spanish company, listed on the IBEX 35. Its main business is the commercialization of natural gas and electricity in various countries around the world. Its headquarters are in the Mare Nostrum building in the La Barceloneta neighborhood, in Barcelona.
