València collaboratively defines 6 demonstration projects to boost the city's energy transition 

Valencia Workshop

18 entities from the private sector, civil society, public administration, universities and the media have participated in the definition of the projects.

The City of València continues its roadmapping process in collaboration with all the entities and stakeholders involved in the energy transition of the city. In the last weeks of December, they selected concrete demonstration projects that represent the vision of a decarbonised, renewable, sustainable, just, and healthy city.

The projects have 2 main objectives:

  1. They allow the city to start acting now, developing and replicating actions that have already proven to be successful and that allow the city to advance as soon as possible towards a new, fairer and renewable energy model;
  2. They are projects that have a transformative character, whose implementation demonstrates a new way of doing things and paves the way for many other initiatives to change the energy paradigm.

These 6 projects are:

  • Massive campaign for energy-literacy: communication and sensitization campaign to bring the energy transition closer to citizens, giving them basic information and tools to motivate and facilitate their participation in the transition of the city.
  • Deployment of energy communities: promotion of energy communities in different neighbourhoods and districts of the city, through co-creation processes with citizens. Participants can define and set-up the energy communities with the legal and technical support of private and public entities.
  • Deployment of energy One-Stop Shops (OSS): replication of the Energy Office of València in different districts of the city, in order to help neighbours renovate their homes, save energy, participate in energy communities or understand their energy bills, and more.
  • Project EURONET 50/50: replicate the project 50/50 in schools, high schools, educational centers and other buildings of the city in order to promote energy efficiency while teaching users about energy efficiency.
  • Energy Neutral Districts: promote holistic solutions (energy efficiency, sustainable mobility, green areas, sustainable food and consumption, urban planning, renewable energy…) in specific districts of the city.
  • Buildings’ renovation: promote the energy renovation of private and public buildings all along the city, since the building stock of the city is old and the current renovation rate is really low.

Promoting participation at 3 different levels

In the framework of the project TOMORROW, and with the support of Energy Cities, Drift and 5 other pilot cities, València is organising three different participatory processes for the definition of the Roadmap of the city.

Internal Energy Working Group

In December, the group held its annual plenary meeting, with the participation of all the municipal services involved in the development of the SECAP (Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan). The Climate Emergency department updated the status of the emissions inventory of the city: there is a tendency towards the stabilisation of the emissions, after a small increase caused by the economic crisis recovery of previous years. All the departments also updated the status of their climate actions, how they are implementing the SECAP according to their competences, priorities and budget, highlighting the impacts of COVID-19 in those plans.

External Transition Team

The External Transition Team of the city is formed by 18 entities coming from businesses, civil society, public administration, academic institutions, and the media. During the last 3 months, the Working Group has been defining, prioritising and analysing demonstration projects for the energy transition of València. After coming up with a list of more than 40 projects and 70 stakeholders to involve, the group selected 6 projects as the most important and representative ones. Then, they collaboratively defined the targets and vision of each project for 2030, and the specific actions to implement in order to reach those targets.

València Changes for the Climate!

In December 2020, València hosted the online edition of València Changes for the Climate!, a series of open events to discuss and talk about climate change with citizens and stakeholders of the city. After the session in March, which was focused on the organised civil society, this winter session was centred on academia and how universities can lead and contribute to the ecological transition of the city.

Read the article in Spanish