Trigeneration from biomass for an Eroski supermarket in Vitoria

Eroski has presented its supermarket project to the Vitoria-Gasteiz City Council, a project that moves towards energy self-sufficiency and is being developed in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Centre (CENER), the technology center responsible for technical coordination. This pioneering project in Eurwill feature an innovative trigeneration system capable of supplying electricity, heat, and cooling from locally sourced biomass, drastically reducing consumption from the electrical grid.

The Secretary General of EROSKI, Mikel Larrea, together with the technical director of the project at CENER, Sergio Diaz de Garayo, have conveyed to the mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Gorka Urtaran, the work schedule for the execution of the pilot project in the EROSKI/center Ali Gobeo store that the cooperative has in the capital of Alavesa, which starts this month and will conclude in mid-2016.

 “Moving towards sustainable construction is one of the fundamental objectives of Eroski’s strategic environmental plan, with the aim of reducing the environmental impact of our activity. In 2012, we developed the first 100% Sustainable Zero Emissions store, and now we are embarking on a new generation of sustainable store whose main objective is to demonstrate the viability of a comprehensive and innovative solution for modernizing supermarkets in order to achieve a drastic reduction in dependence on the electricity grid, with a significant improvement in reducing environmental impact,” stated Mikel Larrea, Secretary General of Eroski I.

The project's definition began in 2013, and work is now underway at the Eroski Ali Gobeo supermarket in Vitoria-Gasteiz. In addition to implementing the energy-saving measures already developed in Eroski's previous eco-store model in Oñati (Gipuzkoa), which are currently being rolled out alongside the transformation of stores to the new "contigo" (with you) business model, an innovative system will be installed capable of supplying the supermarket's heating, cooling, and electricity needs using a biomass boiler. This will make it the most advanced supermarket in Eurin terms of energy self-sufficiency.

“This project represents a direct saving of 494 MWh of electricity annually, which translates to a reduction of 178 tons of CO2 emissions per year. The transformative potential of the project lies not only in the construction of new supermarkets but, above all, in the energy-efficient retrofitting of existing ones. It aims to achieve electricity consumption savings of more than 25% through energy efficiency measures, which are then complemented by a 100% renewable energy trigeneration unit based on biomass as the primary source,” explained Sergio Diaz de Garayo, the project's technical director at CENER.

In a traditional supermarket, approximately 55% of the energy used is for refrigeration via electric compressors. This project develops an innovative trigeneration system combining three very different technologies that work together: biomass, absorption chillers, and cogeneration. This system is capable of supplying a large portion of the refrigeration required by refrigerated storage rooms, freezer islands, and refrigerated display cases in the sales area. It also includes an ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) that will generate electricity from the heat of an integrated biomass boiler, using the waste heat for heating. All this equipment will be installed in a way that ensures the system's flexibility and its future expansion to other supermarkets. Implemented in shops and supermarkets across Eur, the project is estimated to reduce the continent's electricity consumption by up to 2.4%.