Alba Iulia is a town in the Transylvania region of Romania. It is a city of 74,000 residents, with an area of 104 km2, strategically located on a rail transport corridor linking Bucharest and Budapest. Aligned with EU policies, the city aims to achieve sustainable economic and tourism growth by reducing pollution, increasing energy efficiency, and developing mobility infrastructures.
The EU aims to be climate-neutral by 2050 – an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. This objective is at the heart of the European Green Deal and in line with the EU’s commitment to global climate action under the Paris Agreement. The transition to a climate-neutral society is both an urgent challenge and an opportunity to build a better future for all. Alba Iulia aligned itself with the EU energy policies and strategies that provide the context for realizing its objectives for sustainable development and growth. Co-creation of the city defines the scope and sets the agenda for working on our vision, and “bridging the gap” between international policies and the local level development and implementation work. The ambitions and objectives assumed within Alba Iulia’s development plan are strongly correlated with the EU energy policies regarding energy efficiency, usage of renewable energy sources, energy poverty eradication, connectivity, sustainable communities, and circular economies.
The InterPED activities are focused on the „Dorin Pavel” Technical College located in the city center. The school, built in 1976, consists of 7 buildings which have different uses. Two of the buildings are used for courses for the approximately 1000 students, but there is also a canteen, a building with sports facilities, a workshop building, a hostel and one building that houses the central heating facilities.
In 3 of these buildings, there are photovoltaic installations (920 panels) with a total capacity of 138 kW. These installations produce approximately 120 MWh annually. As a guide, the table below shows the energy data from 2016.
| PV energy produced [kWh] | 126.331 |
| PV energy produced and provided to the grid [kWh] | 104.328 |
| PV energy produced and consumed [kWh] | 22.003 |
| Energy consumed from the grid [kWh] | 38.454 |
| Total energy consumed [kWh] | 60.457 |
At thermal level, the campus is supplied by a thermal plant with three 581 kW gas boilers for heat generation. In addition, there is a 3.5m3 heat storage tank, which is capable of storing approximately 80 kWh.
Currently, a series of investments are underway financed through the National Resilience and Recovery Fund aiming for the retrofitting of the main building, modernizing heating units, installing further PVs on one of the buildings, heat pumps and LED lights in the buildings etc. An 22.003EV charger is foreseen to be installed in the proximity of the school, within a large mobility project that Alba Iulia Municipality developed in the last 2 years.
Alba Iulia plans, within the InterPED project, to also develop some interventions, in terms of equipment and digital solutions, capable of managing/exporting data. As of August 2024, the public tender for the InterPED interventions has not yet started, given the workings in progress made within other EU projects on-site.
Blog signed: AIM Team