Our journey to discover the Group’s sustainability best practices takes us to Isla de la Cartuja, the Smart City in the heart of Andalusia

To develop an urban model that’s open, digital, 100% carbon neutral and sustainable. To do so in the Cartuja Science and Technology Park (PCT) in the center of Seville by 2025 and to therefore anticipate by a full 25 years the climate and energy targets set by the United Nations for 2050.  

Science fiction? No. It’s already happening, thanks to the program launched by Endesa in November 2019 in partnership with the Junta de Andalucía, the Seville Municipal Council and the Cartuja PCT.  

Isla de La Cartuja is a district of Seville, a small island crossed by the river Guadalquivir, connected to dry land by a bridge that was opened at Expo ’92. Thanks also to the efforts of Endesa, this beating heart of the Andalusian capital will become the model of a pioneering smart city for technological parks and cities around the world.  The #eCitySevilla project, the name given to one of the four initiatives that make up the Sustainability Stories, aims within 6 years to transform Isla de la Cartuja into an international point of reference for sustainability and urban energy transition, anticipating the challenges to be faced by cities in the not too distant future. A project to which dozens of entities, including businesses, institutions, universities and research centers have already subscribed.  

To accomplish this, Endesa and the Business Lines are working synergically.  

Enel Green Power España will ensure that Cartuja PCT has a supply of 100% renewable energy generated on the Isla de la Cartuja itself with a photovoltaic generating park and the development of large storage plants to make the supply of energy totally self-sufficient and renewable by 2025. 

A totally sustainable city also with regard to construction – increasingly efficient thanks to a process of energy restructuring of buildings and electric mobility. Endesa X therefore is, and will be, committed until 2025 to promoting green mobility with over 2000 vehicles, the installation of 200 charging points and, as part of a makeover with the accent on shared, green and sustainable mobility, redesigning the pedestrian areas and vehicle carriageways to recover 80% of the current parking lots in favor of new forms of public transport thanks to a connected and autonomous system: in short a smart grid.

The efforts made towards a smart city conceived in this way also require considerable digitalization of systems and processes. E-Distribución is therefore involved in creating and implementing a platform, a single smart grid, to manage the entire district with an open and secure open data system, which at the same time allows advanced data analysis with the idea of integrating, in the short and medium term, services such as public lighting, travel needs, logistic processes, air quality and the number of vehicles connected for managing traffic. 

eCitySevilla is without doubt an ambitious project well summarized in the words of Jorge Jimenez, Director of the Andalusian Energy Agency who said: “The big challenge ahead is to manage the great talent that exists in both the public and the private sectors and to agree to work together for a result that is global, not particular“. Indeed, due to the nature of the initiative, synergy is the most frequently associated word. Also with regard to the SDGs that are at the heart of it: starting with SDG17 that underlines the fundamental role of partnerships to achieve the shared results, by way of SDG 7 and SDG9 – respectively dedicated to access to energy for all as well as the need to implement sustainable industries and infrastructures, up to SDG11 to make human habitats sustainable, resilient and safe. All this against the background of the main goal, SDG13, i.e. to propose these ambitious initiatives within the context of a constant fight against climate change. 

Sources:

Link to Enel website: https://www.enel.com/
https://www.endesa.com/en/projects/all-projects/innovability/south-summit-2020/eCity-Sevilla
Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ag7zMAv6a4