“Regional and local authorities play a crucial role in relation to the mitigation of climate change, promoting energy efficiency and greater use of renewable energies,” said AREAL.
The involvement of local authorities in the creation of a regional network to promote self-consumption and storage of renewable energy are the objectives of a memorandum signed in Loulé last week.
The memorandum, driven by the Algarve Regional Energy and Environment Agency (AREAL) and signed by seven councils in the district of Faro, is based on the European project StoRES (“Promotion of higher penetration of Distributed photovoltaic energy (PV) through storage for all”), funded by the Interreg MED Programme, which “provided the best practices and background for the agency to move forward with the creation of the network,” said AREAL director, Claudio Casimiro.
The project will “promote self-consumption solutions in local authority buildings and in licensing issues, advising property developers to implement the same solutions in private buildings”.
A new law coming into force next year will make “a greater focus on collective self-consumption”, allowing a single entity or municipality to “share several facilities” for energy production, for example “a municipal building without conditions to produce energy, which can benefit from the installation made in other buildings of the municipality”.
Albufeira, Alcoutim, Aljezur, Castro Marim, Loulé, Portimão and São Brás de Alportel were the seven councils that signed the memorandum with AREAL, but “there are other municipalities that have already shown interest in joining the project as well”.“As the Algarve is a region with high potential for renewable energy, namely solar energy, it is important that this resource is used for the production of hot water and electricity, particularly through photovoltaic (PV) technology,” said AREAL.
