District heating - Citizens and Municipality involvement

Ispaster is a small village (22 square kilometers) located in Euskadi, in the North of Spain, with 740 inhabitants. Their main goal is to be autonomous and to have an isolated energy island based 100% on RES. 

Ispaster has 1,000 square meters of roofs suitable for solar installations and the possibility of obtaining 1,200 tons per year of residual forest biomass. Based on this potential, they have opted for renewable energies to be self-sufficient in energy and achieve a stable price in consumption. Thus, supplying hot water, heating, and electricity in public buildings comes from its network. Currently, the percentage of local renewable energy exceeds 75% in all consumption of the microgrid.

The ring-shaped alignment of Ispaster's heating project was built in three phases:

• Phase 1 - school with biomass. The project started by providing thermal energy to the municipal school;
• Phase 2.1 - a heating network which provides domestic hot water and heating for several public buildings;
• Phase 2.2 - photovoltaic panels were installed, with the scope to increase energy efficiency;
• Phase 3 - extending the network with heating, hot water, and electricity from biomass boilers (local wood chips) and solar energy.

All of this provides electricity to 10 public consumption points and thermal energy for up to 13 points (including a building apartment of 10 private houses).