Starting from scratch: monitoring municipal energy consumption
In 2009, the Cádiz City Council signed the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, thereby committing to a 21 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. However the ensuing Sustainable Energy Action Plan, presented in 2013, lacked achievable goals, concrete strategies and follow-up tools, and did not create any real momentum for an energy transition. The conservative government also failed to plan any investments in energy efficiency or renewable energy, or to carry out an energy assessment for the city, or to establish a structure for the implementation of the plan.
One of the main objectives of the new municipal government is to take advantage of local renewable energy resources, including the possibilities offered by the port and shipyards. This would promote an energy transition that would serve as a driving force for change in the urban development model, and would help to rebuild the city’s social and productive fabric. The municipality’s first action was to conduct an internal energy assessment; this revealed a tremendous lack of control over municipal energy consumption. It also exposed a culture of rampant energy waste; the lack of investment and poor maintenance of infrastructure; a deficit of knowledge about energy issues among municipal workers and public representatives; and a complete absence of the necessary human and technological resources for the efficient management of energy.
This is why the new administration’s initial measures were aimed at regaining control over municipal energy consumption. The Centro Municipal de Informática (the municipal IT centre), in collaboration with Eléctrica de Cádiz, has created an online database on energy consumption that allows the close monitoring of costs, consumption and CO2 emissions at each point of supply. It also established a monitoring committee, and a municipal technician exclusively dedicated to energy management has been assigned to each area. Research has been undertaken in order to implement energy efficiency measures in buildings with high energy consumption, and projects to introduce renewable energy in public buildings have been developed. The municipality has applied for funding from the Autonomous Region of Andalucía in order to carry out these projects.[1]
The municipality has taken up the challenge of involving local people in carrying the energy policy forward. Eager to start working with local social and environmental organisations, the city created two working groups on energy even before it had a plan: the Mesa contra la Pobreza Energética (Roundtable against Energy Poverty, or MCPE) and the Mesa de Transición Energética de Cádiz (Roundtable on the Energy Transition in Cádiz).
The social discount of Cádiz: a first step towards guaranteeing the right to energy
At an October 2015 Council meeting, the municipal government unanimously approved something that a number of citizens’ groups in the city had been demanding for years: a social discount to guarantee access to energy for vulnerable families. This proposal was different from the state’s programme, which only provides a 25 per cent discount on energy bills. The social discount proposal stipulated that the design of the energy subsidy would be drafted by a working group open to the public, and the MCPE was created for this purpose.
Why did the people of Cádiz want a different kind of discount? Between 2009 and 2017, 80 per cent of the families in Cádiz were not eligible for assistance from the national programme. This was because they did not get their electricity from certain private energy corporations, such as Endesa and Iberdrola, but rather from Eléctrica de Cádiz, the company that had always supplied them with energy.
MCPE implemented a participatory process to design the future Bono Social Gaditano (Social Discount of Cádiz). Ultimately, the proposal was built collaboratively by the activist groups and human rights organisations that had been demanding its adoption for years. These groups had been working to give visibility to the problem of energy poverty in the city, together with organisations that help families to pay their energy bills (including Caritas, the Red Cross, the Virgen de Valvanuz Foundation, the Dora Reyes Foundation, APDH, 15m and the Cardijn Association, among others); experts from the city’s department of social affairs; political representatives from all parties (except the PP); the personnel of Eléctrica de Cádiz; and people suffering from energy poverty.
During the process, participants defined the criteria for access to the subsidy and agreed to establish an energy efficiency training as a requirement for beneficiaries. It was decided that instead of providing a 25 per cent discount on energy bills (as the state subsidy did), the Gaditano discount would offer a reduced tariff for the amount of energy and power each family needed in order to live a dignified life.
To complement the proposal, the Colegio de Ingenieros Técnicos de Cádiz (College of Technical Engineers of Cádiz) carried out a study on the energy needs of vulnerable families. Suggestions from a number of technical and legal reports were also included in order to ensure that the proposal was technically and legally viable. Once endorsed by the citizens’ groups, the proposal was submitted to the Board of Directors of Eléctrica de Cádiz for a vote.
Despite obstacles created by the Popular Party and Endesa, at the time this article was published Eléctrica de Cádiz and the municipality were working hand in hand to implement the first alternative social discount in the Spanish state. This discount is expected to guarantee access to energy for more than 2,000 families each year. Because Eléctrica de Cádiz is legally prohibited from changing its rates, the funds to cover the costs of this aid will come from a voluntary donation of profits from the energy distribution company. Conversely, the big energy companies that are part of the national discount programme pass the costs of their discount on to their consumers.
As an illustration of the difference in the two benefit schemes, in Cádiz a family of four (with two adults and two children) would be entitled to a discount of at least double what is offered by the national programme (€ 28.50 compared to € 12.95). In addition to this social discount, households are given insight into the specifics of their bills, and are trained to use energy as minimally and as efficiently as possible. With the full assistance of the social discount programme, energy bills may decrease by up to 80 per cent.