Good practice:

RUBI circular industry

Rubí´s industry is responsible for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the area. “Rubí circular industry” is a groundbreaking project implemented hand in hand with Rubi´s council (department: Rubí Brilla), where the main aim is that the industries in the area can share their energy in the most efficient way.
Initially, this initiative arose thanks to a change in the Spanish regulation regarding electric self-consumption. This change, which happened in 2018, now allows companies to share energy; in this case in “Can Jardí” industrial park.
The project has two specific objectives:
1st- To establish symbiotic relationships between different industries, sharing mobility and waste management.
2nd- To share the renewable energy installed, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving enterprises’ competitiveness.
The best scheme to implement this project is through a “power purchase agreement” (PPA), which solves the barrier of having to face the upfront investment needed to install the PV panels.
The call for tender launched by the council was won by a joint venture of 3 engineering companies. At the beginning, the project comprised 13 enterprises, however, due to the COVID 19 situation, only 7 of them finally participated, both with private funds in some cases or through a PPA model in other cases.
Currently, the installed capacity is 842 kWp, which represents a 26% coverage of the energy demand and achieves GHG emissions savings of 298 Tn CO2 (per year).

The council department “Rubí Brilla” launched a call for tenders in March 2020, with public-private funds.
The council promoted commercial works within the industries of the area and established the competition rules.

Due to the success of this first edition, “Rubí Brilla” has decided to launch a new call, in March 2021.

Due to the Covid 19 situation, part of the enterprises initially interested decided to drop out of the project.

This project has several areas of improvement;
First, the fusion of the council to “Majors in action” allowed to start up a new department, focused on energy management in Rubí´s town.
Secondly, thanks to the target established by the council to reduce 20% of greenhouse emissions, in line with 40% establish by Europe, the council concentrated on one of the most important sectors of the city, the industry. This was done by introducing a new action plan in which the main targets are to increase the number of PV installations within the industrial park rooftops, counting with the support of a “Shared- energy” advisor.
Third, in March 2020 the introduction of rules and regulations to shared energy between industries, to reduce transport emissions and waste management.
The next steps Rubí Brilla wants to implement are to include energy efficiency criteria within their industrial park.