MORE EFFICIENT, GREENER AND CHEAPER ENERGY FOR PALENCIA MUNICIPALITY IN SPAIN
With the aim of reducing the use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable sources, a Uniconfort biomass plant was recently inaugurated in Palencia (Spain), connected to the city's district heating network. Currently connected to a thousand homes, the network will reach more than five thousand properties and will supply renewable energy to both public buildings and private homes, significantly reducing atmospheric emissions in the city.
The district heating network is a centralized system that supplies domestic hot water and heating to several buildings. It consists of a thermal power station, a distribution network and thermal transmission substations in the buildings. The type of thermal power station depends on several factors such as fuel, power, technology and location. In the case of Palencia, Uniconfort has designed a plant composed of two boilers fueled by forest chips coming from the cleaning of the woods in the area. This local resource, in addition to being more environmentally sustainable, will allow consumers to save about 25% on energy costs thanks to price stability. Uniconfort was entrusted with the heart of the plant: the design and construction of the thermal power station serving the network. A complete plant from the biomass storage silo to the feeding system, to the two boilers for the production of hot water, to the emission filtration systems up to the chimney. In this plant the storage silo is underground, and is equipped with automated trapdoors that allow the biomass to be discharged directly into the silo itself.
The project is in the implementation phase: in fact, the installation of two more biomass boilers is planned for the production of hot water for a total of 10 additional MWt by 2024.
There are three main objectives achieved with this project by the city of Palencia:
- energy autonomy, with a fixed and controlled cost of energy;
- valorization of local resources, with new jobs, protection of forests and exploitation of local biomass;
- decarbonization, with a significant carbon footprint reduction compared to traditional fossil fuels.
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