FP centers, on alert after seeing electricity bills doubled

This situation is also being experienced by schools Catalans, especially those from Vocational training, which in many cases work from 08:00 to 22:00 and have machinery that must be running for many hours with the consequent consumption. In some cases they have duplicate and nearly tripled the bill. This is the case, for example, of Llobregat Institute of L’Hospitalet, which has gone from paying 800 euros a month for electricity to paying 2,000 last January. Or the Bonanova Institute of Barcelona, ​​which, despite applying a savings plan that has managed to reduce consumption by 34%, has seen how to pay 12,400 euros in January 2021 to pay 20,600 last January.

The directors are worried. They are pulling romantically, but they warn that the savings are finite and that what they spend on paying for electricity will be money that they will not be able to allocate to other projects. “We are worried because we do not know how long this will last or where the price limit will be. We will have to readjust items,” he says. Silvia Munoz, the director of the Llobregat. “We have already eliminated fluorescent lamps and switched to LEDs, but we cannot reduce consumption any further. We are open from 08:00 in the morning until 22:00 at night. And we have machinery. The expense is high and permanent,” she adds.

The Bonanova Institute –open from 08:00 to 21:15– launched a plan to reduce energy consumption at the beginning of this course. “With a brutal effort, this February we managed to reduce consumption by 34% and despite that the bill rose by 64%”, explains the director, Montse Blanes, which warns that this increase would have been even greater if there had not been this effort to save. In this center they have an annual budget for supplies of 120,000 euros. “At this rate we are going to polish it in three months. We are very worried. It will not reach us and I don’t know how we will do it,” says Blanes, who brings up the subject in every meeting with Educació.

In it Joan d’Àustria Institute of Barcelona live in uncertainty since last November the marketer with which the Barcelona Education Consortium had agreed on a series of joint prices. Since then they have not received the bills, explains the director Martin Martin, who knows, through directors of other centers, that the company that has taken over has raised prices and these centers have seen their monthly bill triple. “When the bills arrive, I’m afraid that our spending will triple, as has happened to others,” says Martín, who also fears that the supply will be cut off. “We have a great concern. We have been like this for four months. There are centers, the largest, that have made a living with other marketers, although not at good prices. We are waiting for what the Consorci says, which for the moment has not found an alternative. Like Muñoz, Martín also points out that “there is a danger that the budget will become unbalanced and we will have to rethink the items.”

The Consortium has called a contest in urgent process for a new company to be the marketer of electricity in educational centers. “Until it is resolved, Endesa is the one who provides the service,” explain Consorci sources. The idea of ​​the organism is to offer to all the centers the possibility of being integrated in the new contract. For those who choose not to do so, the Consorci will study an increase in the economic allocation to these centers so that they can face the increase in the bill.

Consulted by EL PERIÓDICO, the Department of Education has claimed to be “aware” that the rise in the prices of supplies is affecting the budget forecasts for schools, which is why it has announced that it will compensate for this increase –which is estimated at 20%– with adjustments in the items that assigned to centers throughout the year. In fact, sources from the ‘conselleria’ point out, a first supplementary assignment has already been made to some centers.

The head of FP of the union UGT, Jesus Martin, warns that this 20% increase proposed by Educació will be “totally insufficient”. “In many cases, the 20% will not cover the cost of electricity and gas in the centres. Prices have risen by more than 20%. It is a derisory item,” he stresses. The UGT has been urgently demanding energy sustainability plans for educational centers for a long time. “The Next Generation funds should be used to install solar panels and for the centers to be self-sufficient and generate energy,” defends Martín. It is what they did before the pandemic in the Miquel Biada Institute of Mataró, which is municipally owned. The director, Theresa Commasexplains that the idea is to supply the surplus energy to public and social buildings in the surrounding area.