Last 28th of January, AGENEX held a joint stakeholder meeting for discussing the approaches to introduce Renewable Energy Sources in the agricultural and industrial sector in Extremadura. Due to COVID-19 restrictions and, in order to guarantee the safeness of the speakers and participants, the event was held online.
In total, 51 participants were gathered, not only from Extremadura but also from the rest of the country. Among the audience were public representatives, researchers, private companies and citizens that were interested in RESINDUSTRY and AgroRES project advances. The online meeting allowed us to reach a wider audience, which after turned out to a fruitful discussion. In this meeting, AGENEX invited Rubi´s city council (from the Catalan region) to explain “Rubí circular industry”, an exciting project for creating an energy community for the local industry.
The event started with a warm welcome of Samuel Ruiz, General Director for Industry, Energy and Mines of the Regional Government. The event was conducted by Cosme Segador, Director of AGENEX. Both stressed the essential role of renewables in the future industrial development of Extremadura. After this, Gonzalo Sánchez, from the University of Extramadura (UEx), introduced the regional assessment that AgroRES project has developed, with a special focus on renewables in the agribusiness. The next speaker was Daniel Encinas, AGENEX technical coordinator, who presented the available grants for funding the integration of RES in the industry.
Both AgroRES and RESINDUSTRY projects presented some successful cases, very interesting to apply in Extremadura that come from the exchange of learning of these projects. The best practices were tackling different RES solutions, like biogas, biomass, and photovoltaic installations.
The best practice from RESINDUSTRY project that was shown was: Biogas production plant based on the brewery´s wastewater. A. Le Coq, due to the need that the Extremadura region has with regards to reuse wastes. Also, AGENEX made a comparison between both Policy Instruments for pointing out strengths and opportunities for replication in this Spanish region.
Following this, Albert Puig, from Rubi´s city council, introduced a groundbreaking project, about how to share energy between different industries. R.I.C (Rubí circular industry) is a pilot project about collective self-consumption energy in the industry park. The main objective of this initiative is enabling industrial areas to share resources, cost optimization and reduce CO2 emissions. This kind of collective installation is at the cutting edge of RES nowadays.
Finally, the Director of AGENEX moderated a debate about the feasibility of RES within the industry, were three representatives of the agribusiness sector were participating: Ángel Pacheco, President of Cooperativas AgroAlimentarias in Extremadura; Antonio Prieto, General Secretary for Livestock and Olive sector in UPA-UCE Extremadura; and Albert Puig.
