Energia Barcelona

Energy Generation Decree

Barcelona City Council is introducing new criteria for more effective energy generation at a municipal level. It has set priorities to transition towards a fair, democratic and renewable energy model. With this new set of regulations, activities at a municipal level must aim for renewable energy generation in the following cases: 

• Construction of new buildings.
• Rehabilitation of buildings and works on roofs and façades.
• Urbanisation and re-urbanisation work.
• Approval or modification of urban planning.

The regulations, mandatory for contracts signed by Barcelona City Council and third parties, also establish that the Barcelona Energy Agency will be in charge of monitoring the applicable technical criteria and will also plan effective alternatives when direct energy generation is not possible.

Barcelona City Council’s public company Tersa launched a crowdlending campaign to fund the construction of a photovoltaic system at the Convent Sant Agustí civic centre.

The campaign, the first of this kind, used the Ecrowd! platform, a specialist in this type of funding, and managed to raise €105,000 in under two weeks to fund the construction of the photovoltaic system, although less money was then used than the total raised. The reduction was possible due to regulatory changes that permitted the reduction of associated costs of accessing and connecting the installation to the grid and to the public tendering process. The overcharge was returned to all investors as soon as costs were closed on one of the returns made.

The system has an output of 32kWp and will generate an annual total of 38,880kWh of electricity (the equivalent of 17 households’ power consumption), which will be used for the building’s own consumption. The system is expected to save a total of 14,700 kg of CO_2eq of greenhouse gas emissions annually.