[Sustain] Fwd: Renewable Energy Powering European Towns/Economies
Eric Brooks
brookse32 at aim.com
Thu Dec 20 09:29:56 PST 2007
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/printstory;jsessionid=1B72DEFE23DB0152BB5D401493FE7DE4?id=50863
Europeans believe that renewable energy will bring economic benefits.
But in Varese, Italy that prosperity has already arrived.
by Jane Burgermeister, European Correspondent
Varese, Italy has added 140 jobs in the past ten years. That's pretty
good for a town with a population of only 2,400. The town, which is
located in Liguria in the northern part of Italy, is experiencing an
economic boom fueled by renewable energy.
The town has seen a six-fold increase in tourists in the last ten years,
many coming just to see its renewable energy network.
Varese became the first municipality in Europe to get 100 percent of its
power from renewable energy sources six years ago. It now generates
three times more electricity than the people living in Varese need and
there are plans in the pipeline for even more renewables.
For this pioneering role, the town won a prize from the European Union
(EU) in 2004.
What has happened in Varese is unusual. On a national level, Italy is
set to fall short of its EU objective of generating 25 percent of its
gross electrical consumption from renewable energy sources by 2010.
Italy's share of renewables was just 13.93 in 2005.
But the mayor of Varese, Michaela Marone, and her predecessor, Maurizio
Caranza, turned their vision of a town driven by renewable energy into
reality by leveraging funds from the EU and using their authority to cut
through red tape.
The town uses wind, solar and small-scale hydropower, a mix best adapted
to its hilly terrain covering a total of 140 square km --- and it has
plans for more hydropower.
Today, renewables bring not only environmental benefits but also
improved living standards to a town that had suffered from years of
steady decline. An additional 350,000 euros [US $514,000] in tax
revenues is handed over to the council each year by the private company
that owns the renewable energy network.
"We fulfill all the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and are non
profit. We use all of our profits towards paying the electricity bills
of the people in the town," Michaele Marone, the town mayor, told
RenewableEnergyAccess.com.
Four wind turbines located on a ridge 1100 meters above sea level ---
where the average annual wind speed is 7.2 meters per second ---
generate 8 million kWh of electricity a year that is fed into the local
grid managed by Acam <http://www.acamspa.com/>, a power company in La
Spezia.
The electricity from the wind turbines alone reduce carbon emissions by
8,000 tons, representing 0.05 percent of the region's total annual
carbon emissions.
Photovoltaic (PV) panels have been installed on the town hall and the
local school. The town hall has 102 PV panels covering 95 square meters
and generating 12,700 kWh a year, which supplies 98 percent of the total
energy consumption of the building.
Varese's secondary school has 39 PV panels covering 36 square meters and
producing 4,600 kWh a year, which supplies 62 percent of the energy used.
In addition to that, the town's swimming pool is heated by solar power
and a program to promote the use of wood pellet stoves is in the works.
In conjunction with the development of a renewable energy
infrastructure, the town has also launched initiatives to make Varese
100 percent sustainable. A total of 108 organic farms now supply 98
percent of the town's food; water is purified using environmentally
friendly technology and waste has been significantly reduced.
The town has seen a six-fold increase in tourists in the last ten years,
many coming just to see its renewable energy network.
*Varese Not Alone*
Although certainly a pioneer in Renewable Energy, Varese is not the only
town in Europe to adopt such measures. The same thing is happening in
many towns across Europe.
Güssing in Austria with 27,000 inhabitants has also switched to
renewable energy sources --- and has also moved from poverty to
prosperity, underlining the potential of renewable energy for creating
new jobs and new investment.
And it's not only rural towns that are forging ahead with renewable
energy projects. There has been a marked increase in the numbers of
cities across Europe adopting initiatives to cut carbon emissions and
develop green energy.
Following Rome and London, Paris launched a new "Plan Climat" or climate
plan on October 1st 2007 to reduce carbon emissions.
Munich, Germany has also developed a strategy for cutting carbon
emissions in half by 2030.
Beatrice Alcaraz from Energie-Cités <http://www.energie-cites.org/>, an
association of European local authorities for the promotion of local
sustainable energy policies that represents more than 500 towns and
cities, told RenewableEnergyAccess.com that the driving force behind all
of this expansion was EU policy.
"Municipalities have to adapt their national policies to the European
directives, that is the European directive of public building. They also
have to develop the renewables to achieve the EU energy and climate
objectives," she said.
The EU is targeting urban areas because more than 80 percent of the
European population lives there, and the energy consumption of cities is
growing.
The latest figures from French Environment and Energy Management Agency
(Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie (Ademe)) show
that the energy consumption of French cities grew by 14.5 percent
between 1990 and 2005 from 27 billion KWh in 1990 to 31 billion kWh in 2005.
"The rapid development of renewable energy in so many towns and cities
across Europe augurs well," said Beatrice Alcatraz, speaking about how
cities are combating this increase in energy consumption while keeping
down carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Though cities cover only 0.4 percent of the world's total area, they
consume 75 percent of the energy and generate about 80 percent of the
carbon emissions according to a study by the Münchener Rück.
/Jane Burgermeister is a RenewableEnergyAccess.com European
Correspondent based in Vienna, Austria. /
--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara
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