Spanish utility recognized by UN for its work in renewable energies
NAVARRE, Spain, 2004-07-28 (Refocus Weekly)
The United Nations Centre for Human Settlement has acknowledged the work of a Spanish utility in the field of renewable energies.
A international committee has selected Corporación Energía Hidroeléctrica
de Navarra (EHN) for inclusion in the ‘Database of Best Practice for the
Improvement of the Human Settlement.’ The inclusion grades EHN’s operation
as “one of the best practices aimed at the improvement of peoples' living
conditions on an international level.”
The technical committee analysed more than 2,000 candidates before selecting
EHN's proposal, entitled ‘Fourteen years of a business initiative that has
converted Navarre into an international benchmark in the use of clean energy.’
The committee selected 107 best practices from 53 countries, with only three in
the energy field.
EHN has 2,247 MW of installed renewable energy capacity, of which it owns half.
It has constructed 64 windfarms and has five more under construction, with total
capacity of 2,163 MW. It operates 19 small hydro plants, a 25 MW straw-fired
biomass facility and the largest solar PV plant in Spain at 1.2 MW.
The company is constructing a biodiesel plant and produces 1.5 MW wind turbines
using in-house technology. Its facilities in Navarre have avoided the emission
of 8.6 megatonnes of CO2 since 1996, with 1.4 MT last year alone. The UN
recognition is part of the Fifth International Best Practice Competition, which
is designed to highlight and disseminate schemes that have an impact on living
conditions and which are sustainable. The competition is held every two years.
The committee considered EHN’s “decisive contribution” to the development
of renewables in the northern Spanish region of Navarre, a sector that was “practically
unknown 15 years ago but one that is now capable of generating electricity
equivalent to 60% of the region's demand.” That figure puts EHN among the top
international players in the use of clean energy, say company officials.
Another factor considered important in the evaluation was the high level of
acceptance that windfarms and other renewable energy facilities have achieved
among the residents of Navarre. The company says it excludes sites with high
natural value and applies a range of preventive and corrective environmental
impact measures to sites selected for windfarms.
EHN has a policy of communicating the benefits of wind power and gaining
community support, including raising environmental awareness among students
through an educational program that has reached 60,000 youngsters from Navarre
in the last decade.
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