Alcalá de Guadaíra interested in the Rubí Brilla (Shines) project and the Industrial Competitiveness Board

The mayor of the Sevillian municipality Alcalá de Guadaíra, Ana Isabel Jiménez Contreras, the councilman for Urban Planning and Treasury, Francisco Jesús Mora Mora, and the general municipal coordinator, Salvador Cuiñas Casado, visited Rubí this Tuesday in order to learn about some of the projects being done in the city. The delegation expressed great interest in the initiative to encourage renewable energies and energy efficiency, Rubí Brilla (Rubí Shines) and the Rubí Industrial Competitiveness Board (TCIR per its Catalan acronym).

After being welcomed at the City Council, the representatives from Alcalá de Guadaíra shared a work meeting at the Masia de Can Serra with Mayor Ana María Martínez Martínez, the councilman for International City Promotion, Moisés Rodríguez Cantón, the councilman for Territorial Planning and Business Services, Rafael Güeto Ortiz, and the manager for City Council functions, Jordi Núñez Freixa. During the meeting, they learned about the different working areas of Rubí Brilla and how they have been expanded since the start-up of the project in 2011, until covering all topics related to energy: public administration, industry, commerce, domestic sector, promotion and awareness raising, technology transfer, energy retrofitting, sustainable mobility and self-consumption.

One of the initiatives that Alcalá de Guadaíra representatives took the greatest interest in was the 50/50 project, via which energy efficiency is promoted at schools and that, since its implementation in 2012, has translated into global savings greater than € 300,000.

Other innovative proposals were also discussed at the meeting, such as the Local Aggregated Energy Procurement Group, which was started in 2018 to help companies reduce their energy costs and favour 100% renewable-origin consumption. At present, the group is made up of 80 supply points and 61 companies, which have achieved an average saving of 7% (in some cases, cost reductions have been up to 20%). The first group solar self-consumption project was also explained in industry Self-consumption 0/0, which was implemented last year at the Can Jardí Economic Activity Hub (PAE, or polígonos d’activitat econòmica) via a public-private collaboration. The facility, from which eight companies will benefit, will lead to a saving of 450 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Another topic on which the visit of Alcalá de Guadaíra focused was the TCIR, a pioneering and innovative governance initiative promoted by the Business Services Office (OSE). In the framework of this body, different business and knowledge agents in the region work jointly to define and implement proximity policies for the economic development of the municipality. Last year, the board was included in the Local Government Good Practices Bank by the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia and the Pi i Sunyer Foundation.

To Mayor Ana María Martínez Martínez "it is extremely satisfying to verify that the projects we are developing in Rubí with great conviction, and that are already part of how we operate as an administration, are recognised outside the municipality as innovative practices and great management examples".