Marbella's new solar panel installation at its main exhibition and conference centre will supply electricity to other municipal buildings
The project, the largest undertaken by the town council, will allow 45% of the energy produced on site to power public facilities nearby
Marbella town hall is promoting its largest ever municipal photovoltaic installation with the energy conversion project at the Adolfo Suárez exhibition and conference centre, also known as the Palacio de Congresos y Ferias. The local council has taken a decisive step towards sustainability with the energy assessment of the photovoltaic installation planned in the so-called "sustainable refurbishment, energy conversion and adaptation to climate change project" for this centre.
The technical study, now in council hands, confirms that the solar plant being installed in the building - as part of the wider renovation project being carried out by the municipal authority - with 256.54kW peak, will cover more than half of the building's electricity consumption and will generate enough surplus to supply several nearby municipal buildings.
Specifically, according to the report prepared by Altiberia Energía, the estimated annual production will reach 412,350 kWh, compared to the centre's current consumption of 320,436.66 kWh annually. This means that 55% of all the energy generated can be consumed directly by the building, while the remaining 45% (185,557 kWh per year) will be allocated to other municipal facilities.
Beneficiaries: from emergency services to sports
The report outlines possible alternative recipients for the extra energy supply, citing the Local Police station, fire brigade, the town planning building and the Serrano Lima sports complex. These are the facilities that can be considered "nearby", given that, although the legal limit for shared self-consumption in premises associated with the power generation facility is currently set at a radius of only 500 metres, "there is a draft bill in the pipeline that suggests extending the distance to five kilometres, which would allow more consumers to be linked to said facility", the document notes.
"To decide which buildings will benefit, the town council will conduct a study and apply "an appropriate distribution coefficient that allows for the best possible use to be made of the photovoltaic energy surplus"
In any case, the study warns that "the distribution of the photovoltaic surplus energy that can be used in various municipal buildings will depend on their electricity consumption and daily usage", which is why "it will first be necessary to study each building specifically". Therefore, the decision as to whether the energy generated by the new photovoltaic installation at the Palacio de Congresos y Ferias will go to one or several municipal buildings will depend on this study. Furthermore, it will be adopted under the premise of "applying an appropriate distribution coefficient that allows for the best possible use to be made of the photovoltaic energy surplus", stated Marbella council.
A 2.8-million-euro renovation
Energy sustainability is just one of the changes that Marbella's exhibition and conference centre will undergo as part of this comprehensive refurbishment process. The budget is 2.8 million euros, with 2.3 million euros of that coming from the recovery, transformation and resilience plan (PRTR), financed by EU-Next Generation funds, to which will be added another 500,000 euros of municipal funds for subsequent automation of the space.
The renovation includes the installation of a single 4,000-square-metre slab, onto which the solar panels will be mounted, the replacement of all lighting fixtures and air-conditioning, as well as the final cladding of the building to collect rainwater and channel it to a series of tanks for storage to then irrigate the adjacent gardens.
