Construct a building totally self-sufficient using the sol that shines in Benidorm around 300 days a year but also from wind which usually blows frequently in Via Park.
The City Council of the tourist city is going to give the green light in the next plenary session to a innovative project project promoted by the construction company TM Grupo Inmobiliario, based in Torrevieja, and which is part of a investigation in which the University of Alicante.
It is a tower with 100 apartments and 30 stories highwhich will be built on the new Guatemala avenue, within the sector 2/1 Westin the area where the same company will build the new athletics track.
The project will be developed through a Interior Reform Plan (PRI), which will allow the construction company exceed buildability of the plot in exchange for compensate to the municipality. Specifically, with 1.5 million euros and with the transfer of the Racó de l’Infern quarry, in Serra Gelada, which TM itself is regenerating with materials extracted from the Poniente urbanization.
The local government will full final approval of this PRI, the official formula of the popularly known as “hotel award”which has already been included in the informative commissions for next Monday, and which will enable the construction of this innovative wind power building that will also incorporate other renewable energy until it becomes self-sufficient.
The mayor of the city, Toni Perezhas stressed that “with this experimental tower for the use of renewable energy, Benidorm reach a new milestone and is consolidated as referent and spearhead in terms of environmental sustainability”.
The PRI that will be submitted to the plenary for approval establishes the compensation that TM will make to the City Council for the increase in buildable area of the tertiary roof in the tower. As on other occasions, that compensation will be made on the ground to allocate it to public endowments and also in money.
On the one hand, the City Council is going to obtain 1,050 square meters for use as sidewalks around the plot, as well as the Racó de l’Infern quarry that the developer is going to regenerate and later deliver to Benidorm for public use. . Likewise, the company will complete the compensation by paying the City Council 1,502,490.99 euros, which will go to municipal land assets.
The mayor has remarked that “by obtaining the regenerated quarry, Benidorm wins in green spaces and thereby meets an environmental goalto which is added another: to advance in the research and study of sustainable energy models”.
Investigation project
The tower is part of an R+D+I project by TM Grupo and the University of Alicante with which a “greater and better knowledge of wind energy in height”, as explained by municipal sources.
This project has already begun to work with the installation of of anemometers to measure the wind speed in this area of the city. The first of them is located ground level and he has been taking measurements for a year and a half. The second, placed 100 meters high allows real-time comparison of the increase in wind speed and available energy at a height similar to that which the top of the building will reach.
To further amplify the wind speed and convert it into energy, the tower will have a streamlined design and two types of turbine, which will be located from the 20th floor of the building. From there, sufficient energy will be obtained for the operation of the property. Or, at least, this is what the forecasts managed by the construction company and the research project point out.
On the other hand, and to complement this wind energy, the building will have a horizontal photovoltaic plant on the roof y vertical solar panels on one of its facades.
With the turbines, plates and storage systems planned in the building, the urban fabric of Benidorm will house a building that will not only have a almost zero energy consumptionbut it will even have a positive energy balance, since it will also have capacity to store all the energy that is produced and that is not consumed.
“We are talking -the mayor concluded- about significant investment, innovation in construction and the ability of Benidorm to attract projects of this magnitude that reduce the human footprint in the territory”.
Less energy dependence: an inalienable mandate
Meanwhile, Cristóbal Ruiz, the director of Urbanism of TM Real Estate Group, has highlighted that Benidorm is a “unique case of success in Europe as a vertical city on the sea, praised for its sustainable urban model”.
As he explained, the new Climate Change Law, the Technical Building Code and the European Urban Agenda “direct us towards the goal of achieving zero energy footprints in buildings, among other measures, through the production of photovoltaic renewable energy installed on roofs. In Benidorm’s skyscraper skyline, the roofs tend to zero because the height tends to infinity”, he added, to then recall that this city constitutes “a unique model that requires its own energy model to meet the challenges of climate change and the ecological transition”.
Hence, the experimental wind tower prototype, beyond the specific project, aspires to research and transfer knowledge for the benefit of the transformation of the economic model of the city.
“This need is even more pressing today, after war conflict in Ukraine and its consequences on energy prices for companies and the general public. And especially for the hotel industry of the city, which sees the quality and competitiveness of its offer and of the tourist destination itself”, added Cristóbal Ruiz.
For the representative of TM, “overcoming the current energy dependence from abroad suffered by the Valencian Community is something that cannot be waived. It was already a mandate assumed in the face of climate change, but even so in the current situation of energy emergency, it has to be more intensity and complementarity to achieve the desired horizon: to tend, in the near future, towards the senergy sovereignty of the city of Benidorm”.