Community Energy Center and Eco Sustainability Park in the Municipality of Independencia

The Municipality of Independencia has a population of 800,000 living within an area of 7 km². A variety of initiatives are already in place to demonstrate renewable energy possibilities in the area; examples include the construction of a number of solar kitchens and the installation of one hundred solar cookers.

Framed within the Municipal Environmental Policy and the Local Climate Change Plan, this project seeks to implement a Community Energy Center (CEC) within an Eco Sustainability Park. The professionals responsible for managing the project will receive renewable energy training. The CEC will provide an educational space for all local communities within the municipality and for other interested parties.

Additionally, a self-sustaining CEC can become a powerful example of the sustainable management of energy, hot water and biogas production for other municipalities and the private sector.

The Eco Sustainability Park will not only include the construction of the CEC but also a nursery school and a recycling centre. More than 10,000 inhabitants in the densely populated local neighborhood, primarily working-class, are expected to benefit from the services offered.

The specific objectives of the project are to:

• Create a Community Energy Center with demonstrative renewable energy technologies in the context of the Eco Park of the Municipality of Independencia
• Install thermal solar technologies and photovoltaic energy in the CEC;
• Create a meeting space for the local community and schools for educational and training programmes for sustainability
• Implement biodigesters for energy production in the CEC
• Provide technical and theoretical training for local communities, municipal professionals and the public
• Disseminate locally (within the metropolitan region), nationally and internationally the activities developed in the project.

Project partners for the Community Energy Center are the Environment Department of the Municipality, Adapt Chile and the Production Ecology and Resource Conservation of the University of Wageningen (The Netherlands).