He Barcelona’s town hall has fallen far short of the forecasts it had to multiply the solar panels in the city and increase the production of renewable energy that it ventured to achieve in public facilities, private buildings and neighborhood communities in the last three years. The council put together a plan called Més Barcelona, endowed with 50 million euros to materialize between 2021 and 2023. The goal was to raise the installed power to 83 megawatts. However, the result is that four million euros have been invested, less than 10% of what was planned. It has contributed to the payment of 10 projects, without the plays have yet been completed in all cases, and will increase generation capacity by just under six megawatts.
The pact to approve the budgets of 2021 included an agreement in which the government that Barcelona en Comú and the PSC shared at that time committed to ERC to provide help in the installation of solar panels, thus trying to attract companies to extend photovoltaic energy in the capital. The council offered as a hook to finance up to 30% of the companies to be established to be in charge of developing the projects and undertaking the works. A municipal report from January 2022 stated that, with the intention of “promoting and accelerating the energy transition”, the City Council recorded at that time requests of more than 1,500 buildings to benefit from the plan. The study indicated that “the vast majority” of the plaintiffs were residential properties.
The municipal government specifies that, for now, five communities of owners and five other buildings – including companies, cooperatives and institutions – have been able to access the aid. The City Council tells EL PERIÓDICO that the blocks that have received aid to supply photovoltaic energy are located on Cartagena, Idumea, Príncep Jordi, Federico García Lorca and Villar streets. Financing has also been secured to provide solar panels to the buildings of the National University of Distance Education (UNED), the TEB cooperative group, the Turco Spain company and the Nou Patufet school cooperative. In addition, work has been completed on four warehouses. Mercabarna.
The City Council’s calculations placed the Barcelona food market as the public facility with the greatest capacity catering of the Més Barcelona project. In 2022, it was estimated that Mercaba would be supplied with 5,730 kilowatts of solar energy power. It is the capacity that adds up to the dozen projects that, for now, have been managed to unravel.
1,300 applications under study
The Deputy Mayor for Economy, Jordi Valls, has detailed in the City Council’s economy commission that 1,300 requests from buildings interested in joining the plan are being studied. The socialist councilor has admitted that the municipal strategy to expand photovoltaic panels has not materialized with the speed expected. “It is not enough in terms of speed “But, in terms of percentage, it has grown by 177% compared to what we had in 2019,” Valls highlighted in response to ERC, which has questioned the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni on the matter.
Related news
The Republican Jordi Castellana has opined that the balance of the program “is not particularly positive”, although he added that it “complexity”. “We see a delay “very important to address an issue that is strategic and urgent, such as the energy transition,” said the councilor, who judged that “there is still a long way to go.” to help communities of owners who want to be supplied with renewable energy.
Valls has defended the project, which he has judged “interesting”. At the same time, he has described it as “high complexity.” Barcelona has 38.9 megawatts of installed photovoltaic energy power, as quantified by the deputy mayor. It is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 21,000 homes. In Barcelona, 668,790 addresses were registered in 2023. Valls added that the City Council generates 16% of the city’s production, with 215 direct installations, through concessions or subsidized with the Més Barcelona plan.