Europe’s Smart City Santander implements street lighting infrastructure upgrade facilitated by the European Commission Technical Assistance of the eeef

Elecnor S.A.and the eeef signed a forfaiting facility of over € 9 million to be utilised for the replacement of existing streetlights (old sodium vapour lamps) in the Municipality of Santander with a population of 174,612 located in the Cantabria Region in Spain. The Fund is investing upon completion of the installation works.

In 2012, the Municipality of Santander received as the first beneficiary technical assistance from the European Commission Technical Assistance Facility (COM TA) attached to eeef, to conduct feasibility studies and launch the ESCO tender for the renovation works.  As a result, the tender was awarded to Elecnor S.A., an international company from Bilbao with 60 years of experience in developing, building and maintaining infrastructure assets and experienced in renewable and energy efficiency projects.

The main objective of the project is to upgrade around 22,300 lighting points using LED luminaries from Philips, wireless sensors to connect each luminaire with the municipalities’ digital communication network and the remote control system. Elecnor plans to finalise installations by December 2017. The project is expected to realise 80% in primary energy and CO2 savings annually compared to baseline, which is 39,848 MWh and 4,395 t p.a. in absolute terms and will result in €5.4m of monetary benefits for the municipality over a 15-year period of concession.

Santander is a member of the Covenant of Mayors and a founding member of the Spanish Smart Cities network (RECI) with 62 cities. The City of Santander (SmartSantader) is a leader in the Smart Cities initiative and is managing a unique in the world city-scale experimental research facility in support of typical applications and services for a smart city. The Smart City Project started in 2010, while receiving funding from the European community and is led by the University of Cantabria and Telefonica, with the strong backing of the former City Mayor Inigo de la Serna. The City of Santander is a top example for Smart City applications making everyday life more efficient, economical and sustainable for its inhabitants such as via intelligent parking and smart trash containers. The smart street lighting upgrade financed by eeef and to be implemented by Elecnor is adding value to that pioneering role of the city.  

The European Energy Efficiency Fund (eeef) S.A., SICAV-SIF is a “société d’investissement à capital variable” governed by Luxembourg law and initiated by the European Commission in cooperation with the European Investment Bank. eeef increased the initial capitalisation provided by the European Commission with contributions from the sponsors European Investment Bank, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti as well as the investment manager Deutsche Bank. eeef is an innovative public-private partnership dedicated to mitigate climate change through energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy in the Member States of the European Union.