Storytelling about the Study Visit in Basque Country
The hosts, Leartibai Foundation and Basque Energy Agency (Ente Vasco de la Energia) took the project consortium to learn about three good practices from Basque Country:
- District Heating - Ispaster: Citizens and Municipality involvement;
- Energy Community - Ekiola: Citizens involvement and
- world's first breakwater wave power plant: Acceptance of the community.
The first study visit was to the⚡ Ispaster Municipality Council, known for the ring-shaped alignment of its heating project that serves several municipal buildings around it. The installation🔌, which uses a biomass boiler, solar thermal energy, and photovoltaic panels as energy sources, provides hot water, heating, and electricity💡.
The second good practice from the region presented was the 🤝 EKIOLA Energy Community – a public-private initiative supported by the KREAN company and the Basque Energy Agency (EVE), which promotes the creation of prosumer energy cooperatives🔗 in the Basque Country, through agreements with municipalities and citizens. Berriatua, Etxebarria, Ispaster, and Markina-Xemein municipalities are pioneers in the historical territory of Bizkaia, engaging in the generation and management of their energy produced in their surroundings, and the localities of Lekeitio and Ondarroa have shown their interest in being part of these communities. The development of this initiative means recognizing citizens' importance in driving the energy transition, putting consumers at the center of the energy transition, and turning them into prosumers.
The town of 🐚 Mutriku can be proud of the largest 🌊 wave power plant in Spain, inaugurated in 2011. It was the last good practice targeted in the Basque Country. The ⚙️ installation has an innovative technology for generating wave energy⚡, located inside the breakwater that protects the mouth of Mutriku harbor and consists of a turbine room containing 16 units of OWC (Oscillating Water Column) technology. It is a domestically manufactured marine power plant with a total installed power of 296 kW, and the investment required for its implementation was 2.3 million Euros. One of the peculiarities of the wave power station is its location inside a dike, with no contact with seawater, without the danger of corrosion of the equipment.