BEenerGI: Street lighting

Location: Girona Province, Catalonia (Spain)

Population:  149,587 [metropolitan area]

Climate: Humid Subtropical Climate

Duration: April 2015 – March 2019 (completed)

Sector: Street lighting and Buildings

Funding sources: EU

City Networks: Covenant of Mayors

Savings: 100 municipalities of Girona have improved their energy efficiency in public lighting and public buildings, generating savings of 6,037.32 tons of CO2.

Solutions: Implementation of different actions that promote energy efficiency in public lighting and municipal buildings, as well as creating heating networks using biomass fuels and locally producing sustainable biomass. 

Multiple benefits: The mobilisation of 20.3 million euros in investments and 311 job creation.

In the province of Girona, Spain, the signatory municipalities of the Covenant of Mayors had the opportunity to benefit from project development assistance for innovative bankable and aggregated sustainable energy investment schemes and projects.

Objective – To provide technical, legal and financial assistance to Covenant municipalities covered by the province of Girona.

Solutions – BEnerGI included the launch of investments in sustainable energy to accelerate public investment, which involves the creation of heating networks, as well as the promotion of new organisational models through innovative funding systems. One of the cornerstones of the program was the reinforcement of the capacities of the key stakeholders (SMEs, public administration staff, financial entities) and the ultimate beneficiaries (the municipalities). Besides, BEenerGi also provided access to data on local energy consumption.

Funding – The funds from the EU amounted to EUR 922,398.75.

Innovation – The establishment of a new model of multilevel governance among local authorities lead to bundling investments in sustainable energy, which promotes economies of scale and simplifies administrative procedures. These new governance models can be replicated by other local authorities and exported to other sectors (green public procurement).

Success factors – The promotion of new organizational models enabled the inclusion of multiple stakeholders of diverse level, such as small municipalities and SMEs across the province of Girona.

Significant outcomes:

• Launching sustainable energy investments: 12.17 MEUR have been mobilized (awarded or signed contracts) to improve street lighting energy efficiency in 34 municipalities and 9.50 MEUR to improve energy efficiency in 110 buildings of 45 municipalities [source];
• Establishing and promoting a new funding scheme: 69 contracts have been signed, awarded or launched with Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) or Small and Medium Enterprises-Micro-ESCOs (MESCOs), 21 contracts to improve street lighting energy efficiency and 48 contracts to improve energy efficiency in public buildings [source];
• Capacity building: 49 SMEs participated in capacity building activities to become MESCOs [source];
• 311 jobs created [source];
• Forest fire risk reduced:50 % of Girona’s surface is covered by forest. Biomass boilers installed in public buildings have mobilized 5,145 tonnes of local biomass and have encouraged the management of 6,431 ha of Girona’s forest.

Synergies with local policies: / Synergies with other policies

• National Agreement for the Energy transition of Catalonia, sets the goal of achieving a Catalan energy scenario-based wholly on renewable energy by the year 2050;
• Energy and Climate Change Plan for Catalonia 2012-2020, supports the achievement of a 25.3% emissions reduction from 2005 levels, a commitment to generate 20.1% of renewable energy sources of gross final energy consumption and to achieve a 20.2% increase in energy efficiency by 2020;

Political alignment:

• National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030 proposes a reduction of between 20% and 21% of greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990 levels. It plans to achieve up to 42% consumption of renewable energies out of the total energy use by the year 2030;
• Draft Bill on Climate Change and Energy Transitionattempts the decarbonisation of the Spanish economy by 2050 and gives a decisive boost to renewable energies;
• Royal Decree 413/2014, from 06/06/2014, sets the regulation for the activity of electricity production from renewable energy sources, cogeneration and waste;
• The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, 2017-2020 establishes, in line with article 3 of Directive 2012/27/EU, an indicative target of 87.236 Mtoe by 2020 for Spain which implies energy savings of 11.223 Mtoe;
• Sustainable Economy Law (2011) aligns with the EU targets of energy efficiency;
• Building Energy Certification (2007) collaboration agreement to carry out an energy certification program for all types of buildings.

Marketability:

• BEnerGI encourages to share the results of the program throughout Europe so that the new schemes can be replicated in other regions;

The project was communicated and outreached to several meetings across Europe. BEnerGI results have been presented in 14 conferences at the regional level and 5 conferences at the Spanish level. Furthermore, 4 conferences were presented at EU during Les Ateliers de la Commission Méditerranée de CGLU (Tunisia) in Souse, Tunisia. A total of 18 organizations have been engaged in the Beenergi twinning program. Also, BEnerGI project was selected for the EUSEW 2017 award [source].