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The Diputación de Málaga has initiated a pilot project with European funds in three small municipalities in the province: Gaucín, Benarrabá and Jimera de Líbar, where photovoltaic panels will be placed in various buildings and public facilities, thus saving money and also improving environmental sustainability.
The provincial deputy of Development and Infrastructure, Francisco Oblaré, has explained to Europa Press that this pilot project will allow facilities that run on electricity and have a high cost for municipalities to become photovoltaic.
“This saves us money and we emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and even more in the Serranía de Ronda where we are working to promote the sustainability of its environment,” he said, recalling that these are three small towns that in total have approximately 2,400 inhabitants.
The works are expected to be awarded this month and the solar panels will be installed during February and it is expected that by the end of the first quarter of the year that they will be operational. This initiative is 80 per cent financed with European Union funds, while the remaining 20 per cent will come from the Malaga Provincial Council.
In Benarrabá, with around 450 inhabitants, solar panels will be installed on two water pumps and on the roof of the public school. In the town of Jimera de Líbar, with a population of less than 400 people, they will be installed at a pumping station, at the swimming pool and the municipal hotel.
In Gaucín, the largest town of the three with just over 1,500 inhabitants, they will be placed at the school, the health centre and at a water pumping station.
Oblaré estimates that in Gaucín the annual savings will amount to €45,000 a year on the electricity bill – an “important” amount for a small municipality that can be used to put more solar panels on other facilities or to invest in other services, he said.
All the beneficiaries of this project are municipal-owned facilities, the deputy has stressed, who also reiterated that the solar panels will promote of the use of renewable energy and reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere reducing pollution.
The budget for the installation of photovoltaic systems with management and control monitoring in the three municipalities amounts to a total of 334,858.57 euros – 276,742.63 euros plus 58,115.94 VAT. It is co-financed by the Feder Operating Fund ‘A way to make Europe’, within the framework of the 2014-2020 Sustainable Growth Operational Program.
The idea of the Diputación’s pilot is to test its operation and transfer it to the rest of the municipalities of Malaga province. Oblaré has admitted that the consumption of solar energy in a province like Malaga, with so many hours of sunshine per year, is “wasted”.
