Pamplona (EFE).- The Toda Energía energy community, promoted by the Chamber of Commerce of Navarra and which has the support of 28 municipalities, plans to start up its first photovoltaic panels in June, as reported by the president of the entity , Javier Taberna, within the framework of a conference held in Pamplona.
During the opening of this event, Taberna announced that “by June of this year these first 28 town halls will be operating” integrated into Toda Energía Navarra, with those who join it having access to “around 50% reduction of the bill” through of clean energy.
As explained to the media by the CEO of Edinor, Juan Luis Diego, this project can feed 14,000 families and SMEs and will supply “energy that will be produced in the municipality and also has no emissions” being “the most cheapest and cleanest out there.
In this way, he highlighted, “it is possible to bring the energy transition to a local scale” making it possible for people who live in municipalities with 100 inhabitants or who do not have their own roof on which to install solar panels to form part of energy communities, since It is the city council itself that gives up these spaces, all this with European funding.
A project that has been extended to other CCAAs
This project that began in Navarra, reported Diego, “has been spreading to other autonomous communities” and there are already ten that have launched their own energy communities, totaling 209 municipalities and some 50,000 families in “a movement that has just begun”.
During the conference, which brought together fifty Chambers of Spain, a manifesto for the energy transition and decarbonization through the implementation of local energy communities was read, to which 52 of the 85 Chambers of Commerce have adhered of all country
With their signature they have committed to “promote these entities as well as all those initiatives that implement a better competitiveness of our companies, that improve energy efficiency, with green energy sources that allow the sustainability of our planet”.
Navarra has increased self-consumption of energy by 300%
During his speech, the Minister of Economic and Business Development, Mikel Irujo, highlighted the fact that Navarra has followed the European path with the Climate Change Law, which makes explicit the impulse that public administrations must give to these communities, and the Foral Order that defines these entities to “cover the existing legal gaps”.
Irujo has highlighted that Navarra has increased self-consumption by 300% in recent years, going from 31 MW installed in 2020 to more than 100 MW by the end of 2022, a figure that he has acknowledged is “modest” and that forces one to be “much more ambitious”.
The president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, José Luis Bonet, considered that the energy community projects launched in Navarra and later in Seville “constitute a model and an example to follow in the fight against climate change and the boost to SMEs” in terms of sustainability.
For his part, the president of the Seville Chamber of Commerce, Francisco Herrera, said that the success of this initiative has been that as a “prestigious corporation” they have been able to focus on their specialty of “giving confidence” and “disseminating” the project, taking advantage of their ability to be heard by public administrations and businessmen.