Tourism

The BCN School Climate Plan is being partly financed with income from the tourist tax, in accordance with the commitment made by Mayor Jaume Collboni to invest some of this money into projects with a social return. The aims of the plan are twofold: to ensure air quality on one hand and to guarantee the maximum thermal comfort of students in both hot and cold weather.

Barcelona will be investing €100 M in climate control systems in a total of 170 schools between 2024 and 2029. This is set out in the BCN School Climate Plan, delivered through the Barcelona Education Consortium (CEB), and will be financed with revenue collected through the surcharge on the tourist tax.

One of the commitments assumed by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, is to ensure that some of the money collected through the tax on tourist activity is spent on compensating for the impacts and costs of tourism on the city and on promoting policies with a social return aimed at improving the lives of city residents.  That is not to overlook the policies for the clty’s economic promotion, which are also financed through this revenue stream.

In the area of social policy, these commitments will be realised through a number of specific projects. One of these projects is the implementation of climate control systems in schools, which entails the installation of aerothermal systems that produce hot and cold air in a total of 170 education centres, and specifically in 148 primary schools, 16 all-through schools, 3 special education schools and 3 secondary schools.  This means that the City Council will be fitting climate control systems in all the city’s education centres where it is responsible for maintenance and reforms (primary schools, municipal secondary schools and special education schools), and also included in this package are all the all-through schools, despite the fact that the City Council shares responsibility for their maintenance with the Government of Catalonia. This project will directly benefit some 55,519 students across the city.

As regards the schedule for implementing this plan, which runs for six years from 2024, the transformation process will be carried out in two phases. Phase one will be carried out in 2024, 2025 and 2026 in a total of 83 schools which have been prioritised on the basis of various technical criteria. On the one hand, schools have been selected which, due to their location, the orientation of the building, the urban setting and building characteristics, need a more urgent intervention. This first package also includes other centres where less complex and quicker-to-execute projects will be carried out and where, consequently, the climate control systems can be implemented in a shorter time frame. The second phase, which will be carried out in 2027, 2028 and 2029, includes the rest of the 170 buildings included in the plan.

The BCN School Climate Plan is a comprehensive project that also includes fitting photovoltaic panels on the buildings so they will be able to produce the energy needed to power the climate control systems installed. In fact, enough panels will be installed to produce surplus energy which can be shared with the community. In this way, with the income that tourism brings into the city, progress will be made on the decarbonisation of schools and on the overall reduction of non-renewable energy consumption in the city.

Barcelona City Council wants to resolve the issue of climate control in classrooms, because since 2017 the situation has been getting worse with the successive heat waves that have hit the city during the school year. The aims of the plan are twofold: firstly, to ensure interior air quality, bringing health standards into line with current requirements; and secondly, to ensure the thermal comfort of students both during the hottest months and during the coldest months, thereby guaranteeing an environment that is suitable for education and learning.

It is also part of a bigger commitment to move towards the decarbonisation of schools as part of a comprehensive climate plan. The aerothermal systems combined with the installation of photovoltaic panels will practically eliminate the need for the current fossil fuel-powered heating systems (which are gas-powered systems). The proposed climate control systems run entirely on electricity (both for cold and hot air) and the source of the power is solar and self-sufficient. This means an energy saving that more than compensates for the increased consumption associated with the demand for cooling.

Specifically, it is calculated that the total roof area of the schools where the photovoltaic panels will be installed is 258,888 m². Of this total area, 70% can be used for the installation of photovoltaic panels, which is 181,699 m². The yearly production potential of this area of photovoltaic panels, with an efficiency rate of 79.2%, is 31.27 GWh/year. This level of production exceeds the consumption needs of the schools, both for cooling the buildings in the hottest months and heating them in winter. The replacement of gas, with consumption rates reduced by up to 50%, added to the generation of photovoltaic solar power for self-consumption, will mean financial savings of up to €1.1 M per year.