On the 5th of July, the RESINDUSTRY regional dissemination event took place in Mérida, the capital city of Extremadura. The event gathered people from the quadruple helix, which highlighted the potential that the industrial sector has in the region regarding self-consumption.

“Currently, the region has 422 renewable installations for self-consumption, with a peak power installed of 28.2 MW,” said the Regional Minister for Ecological Transition and Sustainability, Olga García, responsible for opening the event. She emphasized in the massive progress developed in the industrial sector over the last few years with regard to renewable energy.

The event, organized by the Consortium Extremadura Energy Agency (AGENEX), counted with the participation of APPA, the national renewable energy business association, as well as with high level representatives of the regional government.

First and foremost, Samuel Ruiz Fernandez explained the current situation of self-consumption within the industrial sector and its future prospect in the short term. He highlighted the new grants that the government has launched for storage and self-consumption within enterprises, which has the highest budget until now allocated for grants, with a total amount of 6.3 M€, and all this thanks to the European Recovery Funds.

Secondly, different engineering and consultancy companies shared their points of view on how things are working in the sector; for instance, Ana Belén Gamero, head of the administrative department in RS Solar explained the red tape and timing needed to install a PV facility in the industrial sector due to slow administrative procedures.

After a networking coffee, AGENEX presented the results achieved by RESINDUSTRY project in Extremadura, as well as the many activities that have taken place in the last few months and the, targets that the project expects to achieve during its second phase of implementation. The entire learning process was shared, explaining the activities carried out within the project, such as the search for good practices, the study visits taken place, the interregional events organized and the capacity increased thanks to it. After this, the regional action plan was presented, focusing on the action implemented to reduce the administrative barriers identified thanks to the One Stop Shop “SICAREx” which started to operate at the beginning of the year.

The event ended with a round table in which several good practices developed in the region were exposed, and that was moderated by Lucia Doléra, head of the projects department in APPA.

Acciona Energía, R2M Solución, Ampere Energy and Eficae Soluciones, shared their experience and talked about their prospects for the near future in the sector.

To close the session, Cosme Segador Vegas, Director of the Consortium Extremadura Energy Agency, ended with a hopeful message about self-consumption. The renewable energy sources have arrived with “strength” and this will continue until 2030 targets are achieved.