He Zaragoza City Council This Friday approved the contract award procedure to auction the energy saving generated by interventions in municipal buildings, transforming it into a source of financing for new sustainable projects.
The Zaragozano Consistory is the first local administration, among the big Spanish cities, in producing this type of economic performance through the auction of its energy saving, provided for in Royal Decree 36/2023 that regulates the energy saving certificates system (CAE). Thanks to this, the City Council of Saragossa You can recover part of the investment made and consolidate its position as a city committed to the environment. Zaragoza is also the first Spanish municipality of the mission of intelligent and climatic cities in developing this measure.
The actions carried out by the City Council have allowed to significantly reduce energy consumption in the main theater, the Morlanes house, the Manuel Alvar Municipal Library, the House of Cultures and the Coexistence Center for older people in San José. In all of them, improvements related to their air conditioning systems have been executed.
Thanks to these interventions, the municipal administration has generated an energy saving susceptible to disposal and certification, which will be tendered through a competitive concurrence procedure, for a minimum amount of 112,493.81 euros. This is the amount resulting from the energy savings reached annually in these five municipal equipment, specifically quantified in 978,207 MWh/year, valued at a minimum unit price of € 115/MWh.
The auction is aimed exclusively at the obliged subjects or their delegates in the energy saving certificates market (CAE), which are: gas and electricity marketing companies, wholesale oil products operators and wholesale liquefied petroleum gas operators. The procedure will be governed by the best economic offer criteria.
The regulatory regulations of the Energy Efficiency Fund allows to transform the energy savings generated from this type of investments into energy savings certificates, so that these savings are monetic and can be transmissible.
This energy savings is of interest, mainly, for the subjects forced to make monetary contributions to said energy efficiency fund, so that, instead of making an economic contribution without environmental linkage, such obligations can pay off by means of the acquisition of CAE, which are based on a performance of improvement in energy efficiency. Thanks to this, the subject who has made the investment to reduce energy consumption (in this case, the City Council of Zaragoza) can also receive an income that compensates for its initial investment.
With this initiative, the City Council of Zaragoza delves into its environmental commitment and strengthens its consideration as one of the municipalities referring to Europe within the mission of intelligent and climatic cities.
Energy Savings Certificate
An energy savings certificate (CAE) is an electronic document that guarantees that, after carrying out an energy efficiency action, a new final energy saving equivalent to 1 kWh has been achieved. In this way, if an action is undertaken that implies a new annual savings of 500 kWh, 500 can be obtained.
This instrument allows to monetize energy savings, recovering part of the cost of investments in energy efficiency (lighting change, improvement of thermal insulation, renewal of industrial or domestic equipment, etc.), since the end user may receive a consideration if it sells the savings obtained for subsequent certification through the CAE system.
