<nettime> Barcelona Energia flicks the switch

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

[This strikes me as a winning formula. Connect the issue of sovereignty
with a program for clean energy. There is a deep, and quite justified,
fear among large segments of the population (at least in Europe) of
having lost control over out individual and collective destiny.
Neoliberal globalization gutted democracy and made people's lifes
dependent on global flows that they cannot control and often don't make
sense. The costs of denying climate change is mounting, you need someone
as extreme and stupid as Trump to do it. But the repressed is never
gone, but channeled into something else.

So, neoliberal globalization as an ideology (not so much as a practice)
is dead. The traditional centrist parties (right and left) bought so
deeply into it, that they have nothing to offer as an alternative

At the moment, this is all fused into isolationist nationalism and
xenophobic hatred against immigrants. But the two projects -- renewal of
democracy for regaining some measure of sovereignty -- and transition
towards cleaner energy can mobilized differently. And this is an example
of how!]



Barcelona Energia flicks the switch | Info Barcelona
30/06/2018 20:00 h

https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/barcelona-energia-flicks-the-switch_683855.html

Besides saving money, the public distributor aims to head the transition
towards  energy sovereignty in the city by backing renewable local power
generation and encouraging more responsible and rational energy consumption.

Barcelona Energia will be distributing the power generated at the plants
it currently manages. These are: 41 solar panels installed on municipal
buildings, the energy recovery plant in Sant Adrià de Besòs, and the
biogas plant at the Garraf landfill site.

Independence from major power companies

The distribution of 100% green local energy breaks the dependency on the
current electrical oligopoly and combats climate change by cutting
greenhouse gas emissions produced by transporting the energy we consume,
as well as reducing energy loss which occurs during the same transport
process.

By making its services available to the public from January 2019 the
company will be taking another step forward in promoting a new energy
culture in the city, offering advice for users to increase consumption
efficiency and also promoting the self-generation of solar energy. The
prevision is that the energy could be supplied to 20,000 families in the
metropolitan area.

Barcelona Energia is the largest 100% public power distributor in the
Spanish state and is already inspiring other initiatives by local
administrations, such as those by the city councils in Cádiz and Pamplona.


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