Barcelona leads the world’s first urban network for sustainable cooling from LNG terminals
The new infrastructure located at the Port of Barcelona will recover 131 GWh of local, decarbonized, and competitive energy annually—equivalent to the annual consumption of a city with 100,000 inhabitants—and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Barcelona City Council, through Tersa and BSM, in collaboration with Veolia and Enagás, has inaugurated a pioneering solution for residual cold recovery installed at the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the Port of Barcelona, the tenth-largest port in Europe. This technological innovation is already operational and generates 131 GWh per year of sustainable, low-carbon, and competitive local energy.
Innovation in the Regasification Process for More Sustainable Cities
In the traditional regasification process, LNG arrives at the terminal by ship in a liquid state at -160 °C, and seawater is used to transform it into natural gas at ambient temperature. In contrast, the new technological and logistical solution captures this residual cold and injects the recovered energy into the urban cooling network, distributed at a temperature of -20 °C.
This urban cooling network is the largest in Southern Europe and provides low-carbon energy to the southern area of Barcelona and parts of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. It serves a variety of infrastructures, including the Fira de Barcelona, offices, industrial centers, hotels, shopping malls, public facilities, and residential buildings.
This groundbreaking initiative will prevent the emission of over 32,000 tons of CO₂ annually, equivalent to 110 round-trip flights between Barcelona and New York, aiming to transform the city into a more environmentally friendly space. Barcelona’s First Deputy Mayor, Laia Bonet, stated: “We are putting innovation at the service of more sustainable and resilient cities.”
Regarding the new infrastructure, she added: “This pioneering project places innovation, energy efficiency, decarbonization, and public-private collaboration at the forefront, enabling cities to tackle the challenges of climate change—challenges that we must turn into opportunities for progress.”
The Food Sector Among Key Beneficiaries of the New Sustainable Cooling Network
As part of this initiative, Veolia has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mercabarna, Barcelona’s wholesale food market and one of the largest in Europe. Mercabarna hosts over 600 companies specializing in the distribution, preparation, import, and export of fresh and frozen products. This key player, which supplies not only Catalonia but also other parts of Spain and Europe, could benefit from the residual cold recovered from Enagás’ LNG terminal for its seven fruit and vegetable pavilions, the fish market, and several businesses in complementary food sectors.
This unique solution, among more than 150 regasification terminals worldwide, presents significant opportunities for recovering low-carbon local energy from previously untapped resources. The project combines technical expertise and environmental commitment, demonstrating the feasibility and relevance of local supply solutions in addressing global challenges such as energy sovereignty and decarbonization.
The success of this project results from efforts initiated in 2009 by Veolia, Enagás, the Barcelona City Council, and various local stakeholders in Barcelona and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. Thanks to these synergies, the local energy produced from residual cold boosts the competitiveness of local infrastructure while driving the urban and sustainable transformation of the port area of Barcelona and its surroundings.
