Heating and cooling networks reach 240 installations in Spain

Biomass, through heating and cooling networks powered by this renewable fuel, has been installed in many homes and communities of neighbors, who enjoy a clean and safe energy supply to cover their heating and hot water needs.

This was reflected in the technical seminar organized last June by the German Chamber of Commerce for Spain (AHK) at the PRAE (Environmental Resources Center) in Valladolid. The event, which brought together more than one hundred professionals from across Spain, confirmed the sector's interest in expanding biomass-fueled heating and cooling networks and showcased the wide variety of equipment, services, and technologies offered by German companies in this field. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) participated, highlighting the current positive trend in the development of heating and cooling networks in the country, as did the Spanish industry associations Avebiom (Spanish Association for the Energy Valorization of Biomass) and Adhac (Association of Heating and Cooling Network Companies).
 

Spain: Sustained Growth and Great Future Potential.
According to data from Adhac, as of September 23, 2014, the total number of networks in Spain was 240, with 202 of them registered. Of these, 175 (86%) were heating networks, 9 (4%) were cooling networks, and 18 (10%) were combined heating and cooling networks. These networks served approximately 87,000 homes, while the length of the pipes exceeded 300 kilometers. In total, these collective climate control systems generate savings of 150,000 tons of CO2 per year.

The total installed capacity of the networks registered by Adhac amounts to 1,109 MW. Of this, 792 MW (71%) correspond to heating installations, while 317.4 MW (29%) are for cooling. Regarding the fuel used, 29.68% uses renewable fuel—primarily biomass—while natural gas remains the preferred fuel for these networks at 48.71%. As for the customer profile of those using heating and cooling networks in terms of capacity, 46.88% belong to the service sector, 33.08% to residential buildings, and the remaining 20.04% to the industrial sector.  

As Juan Jesús Ramos, head of the ONCB, emphasized at the Valladolid conference, the benefits of facilities using biomass are evident, as they provide significant savings on energy bills thanks to lower fixed and variable operating costs; better energy rating (high efficiency) and increased property value; greater availability of usable space thanks to the absence of production equipment and chimneys; flexibility and adaptability to have greater power; continuous technological updates; greater guarantee and security in energy supply; and projection of the corporate image, generating a common feeling of shared responsibility.

Collective or centralized heating is, logically, found in large towns and cities, reaching percentages close to 17% in the most populated ones. This system, clearly more efficient and economical, is found in many buildings from the 1970s and 80s, where coal, and later heating oil, were the main fuels. These systems are now obsolete and, in recent years, are being replaced by others that run on gas and biomass.

Sixteen years since the first district heating network in Spain.
From the first district heating network in 1999 in Cuéllar (Segovia), serving 278 homes, to one of the most recent and significant in the Torrelago Urbanization in Laguna de Duero (Valladolid), with 1,488 homes, the journey has not been easy. In the beginning, there were logistical problems to overcome in the supply of biofuel and blockages in the wood chip feeding system, and, most difficult of all, the skepticism of some. Fortunately, these problems have been resolved, generating increasing public confidence in bioenergy, a renewable, sustainable, efficient, inexpensive, and CO2-neutral energy source.