Local Success Stories

Local Success Stories

Country

Spain

#

Name of Example

Location

1

DH system with biomass

Cuéllar (Segovia)

The Initiative

The initiative of the construction of this installation was due to the aim of having an exemplar DH in Spain replacing the current system in an existing district.

It was placed in Cuéllar, a small town in the center of Spain which is a very cold area in winter. The forestall activity is very common there because of is a town surrounded by forest.

The population of this town is of approximately 9000.

It was promote by the Spanish Energy Institute (IDAE), the Castilla y León energy entity (EREN) and the town hall. The first initiative emerged in 1997 the moment when the three entities signed an agreement to the realization of a DH system in this town.

The parts of this agreement proposed to make the investment by IDAE and EREN with two subventions from IDAE included in the annual national plan of subventions of that year and other from EREN also into the energy annual plan of subventions. The management and maintenance of the system would be undertaken by the municipality. The town hall had to return the inversion until the total amortization of the plant during a period of 20 years. So last year this contract finished.

The plant supplies the heating and domestic hot water of 16 houses, 5 housing cooperatives (in total 200 housing), a school and an indoor sports hall and a cultural center.

The planning of the project began in September 1998, and the construction in August 1998 taking 8 months the works and finishing the system in April 1999 after a few months of working on tests.

Nature of the impact

The technical characteristics of the installation are the following:

One main boiler of 5.233 kW for heating and domestic hot water along the winter and heating periods.

One auxiliary boiler of 698 kW for domestic hot water in summer and periods without heating.

On storage tank of 100m³ for biomass combustible.

Network length of 3km (two pipes, one for distribution and other for return) of steal isolated with polyurethane and buried at 1 meter of profundity.

The substations are an exchanger for heating and an storage tank for domestic hot water.

The supply of biomass combustible is done by the Town Hall, also all the management of the installation. The biomass proceed from the nearest companies of wood, and agricultural, wood from packaging sector and also wood waste from the cleaning works of the forest. It add also the saving of the transportation for the combustible (which is a thing not included in the energy saving calculation).

As a conclusion of the savings from this installation, the saving in the energy bill is about the 10% (as an average from all the users).

And the energy saving is of 644 tep of primary energy.

Total investment of the installation: 1.158.000 €

Subvention by IDAE: 220.252,91 €

Subvention by EREN: 137.162,71 €

Main Barriers

The construction of this installation had no longer barriers because the administrative process was so easy, the only barrier it had at the beginning was the social barrier to accept this installation.

The beginning of the initiative was hard to the three entities because of the social point. They had to change the current heating system which worked perfectly for a new unknown system.

So it was the first challenge, convince all population of the district that the project would improve their heating systems economically and the environmental and social advantages.

The main difficult to do it was the absence of any close reference of this kind of systems. For this reason was necessary a social process.

The achievement of the agreement of the population made possible the construction of the actual plant.

PART 3: LOCAL SUCCESS STORIES

Country

SPAIN

#

Name of Example

Location

2

DHC - Barcelona SUD

Barcelona (Catalonia)

The Initiative

The initiative of the construction of this installation was due to the aim of having the first DHC in Spain, motivated on one hand by the universal exposition Forum in Barcelona and on the other hand by the Improve Energy Plan of Barcelona approved by the beginning of 2002 in which a different proposals are done with the objective of improve the energy efficiency and the renewable energies also the scheme of energy generation in the urban area considering the possibility of externalized the energy supply of the buildings centralizing it in an only center replacing the existing ones.

With this idea born a partner-ship between private and public partners with Cofely, SAU, Agbar, and some Barcelona’s public entities. All together form Districlima.

This DHC has three phases.

The first one is the Forum DHC. It supplies Forum consumptions.

The second one is the 22@. It supplies consumptions from the 22@zone.

The third one is under construction. It will supply part of the nearest neighborhood.

The first phase began to be built in 2003 finishing in 2004, for the Forum exposition.

The second phase is already finished being in construction the third one. The main idea is end it in 2015.

Nature of the impact

The technical characteristics of the installation are the following:

Cooling production:

- 2 absorption cooling machines (using waste energy steam). Power of 4.5 MW each. 9MW in total.

- 2 cooling electrical machines; Power of 4 MW each. 8 MW in total.

- 2 cooling electrical machines with speed regulator (COP capable of exceeding 10 in winter). Power of 7 MW each. 14MW in total. These machines are refrigerated directly by the sea water.

- 1 storage tank of 5,000 m³.

Refrigeration system:

- 3 exchangers of 12.5 MW each. Power of 37.5mW in total. Exchangers between seawater / refrigerated water.

- 1 pumping station of capacity of 5,000 m³/h.

Heating production:

- 4 exchangers of 5 MW each. Power of 20MW in total. Exchanger between steam / water.

- 1 20 MW gas steam boiler (back-up for waste energy steam).

Most of the heating and cooling produced is taking the steam of the urban waste burning of the treatment plant. (the heating is used directly and the cooling by an absorption machine. This is the first step to minimize the fossil combustible consumptions.

The rest of the heating is done with a gas boiler as a back-up and the back-up for cooling is done by electrical cooling machines refrigerated by the sea water. With this measure refrigeration towers are avoided also the legionella risk.

The power of the system is nowadays of:

Power for heating: 41,3MW

Power for cooling: 63,8MW

Length of network: 12,0km

The third fase will finished up to 2015 and the power of the DHC will be of:

Power for heating: 90MW

Power for cooling: 153MW

Length of network: 14,9km

The impact of this construction is:

- The network’s works of construction are so complicated because it is done in an existing urban area. The problems are noise, dust and the civil works by theirselfs.

- The environmental improvement of this installation has been the anual reduction of the emissions of 5.253 CO2 tones.

Main Barriers

The main barriers have has this DHC had been produced by the fact of being constructed in an existing urban area.

- The network’s works of construction in an existing urban area need to lift the streets causing an annoyance dust in the air, noise, and cuts of streets. It’s a problem also for the services companies in those streets.

- Other problem was the location of the generation centrals because there not welcomed by the neighborhood.

- The last difficult for the development of this project was the economic one. The investment was so high taking into account that long terms of the recovery of investment makes a not attractive investment for private companies, so public entities invested on to the network also to carry on with the project.