Efficiency and knowledge sharing, Ispaster goes to visit

For the last 14 years, Ispaster has been hosting observation visits from universities, companies and public entities.

The presentations are given for multiple purposes including best practices award entries at least once a year – for energy efficiency and renewable use.

A lot of factors play into the choice of renewable technologies, such as access to wooden areas, nearness to the sea and industry.

Ispaster’s innovative use of biomass and hybridisation for district heating attracts a lot of attention. Industry heat is ordinarily used up north, but there are no industrial sites in the region and ingenious solutions are required. They are the first municipality in Spain to set it up in such a way and there are plans to incorporate the school into the district heating network

The last visit was on the 23th June by SIRENERGY. They were toured around the insulations and sat for a presentation on best practices at the culture house.

The University of Basque Country , which was last there in April has been a regular visitor for almost ten years. Every year between 40 and 50 students in renewables engineering visit Ispaster to see how these technologies are applied on the ground.

Ispaster’s relationships with other entities go beyond Basque Country – these symbiotic relationships reach to Cataluña and Castilla y Leon, with a presentation on biomass in Valladolid every year.

An upcoming visit, this time from Ispaster to the Basque Energy Agency [EDE] will be focused on efficiency and self consumption

Knowledge sharing

Barrizar and the city hall have meetings scheduled with the small towns of Berritxu and Berriatua to create two energy communities with funds from the Basque government, following the example of LocalRES. They will start out with PV panels, but just in one location.

This kind of small projects are a good entry point for some locations, for it’s best to start small and focus deeply on it – without this, citizen engagement becomes quite tricky