First it was Cádiz and now it is Barcelona. The Catalan capital has decided dispense with traditional electricity and have its own marketer municipal public energy. It is called Barcelona Energía and it will only acquire electricity generated from renewable sources. The City Council estimates that with it it will save half a million euros per year. Barcelona Energía will be operational in the summer of 2018.
El Barcelona City Council plenary session approved last Friday the creation of Barcelona Energía with the support of all municipal groups, with the exception of the PP, which has decided to abstain. The new marketer will operate through the public company Tractament i Selecció de Residus SA (Tersa) and it will be the largest 100% public electricity company in Spain.
The forecasts of the municipal government of the mayor Ada Colau, considered a priority to create a public energy company (to stop the oligopolists, according to her), whichwhich will mean a saving of 500.000 euros in the purchase of electricity. In a first phase, the marketer will offer local and one hundred percent renewable energy, serving 20.000 homes.
The start-up of the marketer responds to the will of the Municipal Government to play an active role in the energy market, according to the council on its website. Its objective is to lead the transition towards energy sovereignty, based on increasing local generation with renewables, reducing energy consumption, using it rationally and guaranteeing its supply to all.
Barcelona Energía can also become the market agent for surplus energy produced in municipal self-consumption facilities. In addition, the city council is studying the creation of three main tariffs in the local electricity market: the first, for town halls and municipal corporations; a second for small customers (including those that generate electricity) and a public rate, which will take into account a specific price for people living in energy poverty.
Olot (Girona) creates the first air conditioning network based on three renewable energies
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.