Good practice:

ENERGY EFFICIENCY ACTION PLAN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA

The University of Granada has a wide estate of 122 buildings, and a constructed area that amounts to 616,394 m2, and has 7 University Campuses, where continuous improvement in terms of energy efficiency is very important. The problem is the high energy expenditure and emissions, and for this reason an Energy Efficiency Action Plan was carried out.
It has a district air conditioning for cooling and heating, which serves 76,650 m2 on the Healt Sciences Technology Park Campus.
- How does the practice achieve its objectives and how is it implemented?
The University of Granada has 100% renewable energy certified through REDEJA the Energy Network of the Junta de Andalucia's Government.
It starts with energy audits in the different buildings, and from them, energy saving measures are implemented according to their economic, technical and energy viability.
These include, among others, the following areas of action:
- Change of luminaires to led.
- Change of heating fuel.
- Replacement of windows.
- Monitoring of facilities.
Who are the main stakeholders and beneficiaries of the practice?
More than 3,677 teachers, 53,190 students and 2,616 administration and services personnel benefit from the current project.

Average of 1,000,000 € per year from own funs of the University of Granada's are invested directly in energy saving, implemented through different tenders and also with its own maintenance personnel.

Since this methodology began to be put into practice, the change of lighting, the change of fuel in heat production and the change of windows, among others, has been promoted.
To date, these results achieved are estimated as follows::
- Energy saved: 892,858 kWh / year
- Emissions avoided: 441.64 Tn CO2 / Year
- Total equivalent tres planted 11,300 trees /year

The main challenges are to obtain the financing, the size of the institution, the number of buildings and interlocutors to implement a system, and prior to the installation of the control system, also the lack of data and measurements.

The main strength of this practice is that it is a method of continuous improvement, and therefore, although they are partial actions in the buildings, they do not stop having a cumulative result throughout the useful life of the property, allowing thus constantly improve its energy demand.
The energy savings figures shown are for all the actions that have been implemented at the University, showing a considerable reduction in the energy required annually as a whole.