City of Valencia’s Requiem in Power Solar Panels Project

One of the Top 20 Most Influential Projects of 2024

City of Valencia’s Requiem in Power Solar Panels Project

One of the Top 20 Most Influential Projects of 2024

For inventively using municipal land to provide clean energy to the city of Valencia

Region: Europe  Sector: Energy  UN SDGs: 7, Affordable and Clean Energy; 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities

Solar power is recognized as one of the most promising, productive forms of clean energy, and since 2009, its stored capacity has increased annually. In 2022, global solar-generated capacity reached one petawatt. It’s a number that’s hard to wrap your mind around if you’re not a renewable energy expert, but people who are, emphasize the potential of solar that’s still to be realized. In just over one hour, enough sun strikes the Earth to power world energy use for an entire year. The challenge is installing a sufficient number of solar panels to capture all that energy.

Solar panels require a significant amount of land space, and the world doesn’t want to solve one problem — expanding renewable energy capacity — by creating another one, such as cutting down large numbers of trees to create space for renewable energy infrastructure. In addition, some renewable energy installations, including solar panels, attract criticism and resistance because they are viewed as an eyesore or threaten property values. In the United States alone, 30 percent of proposed renewable energy projects failed because of such resistance, according to a 2022 study published in the academic journal Energy Policy.

The municipality of Valencia, Spain recognized these challenges, and in 2023, introduced a project called Requiem in Power that presents an innovative and unexpected solution — using the city’s cemeteries as sites for solar panels. In his announcement about the project, Alejandro Ramón, the city’s head of climate emergency and energy transition, said hat the 3.3 million euro Requiem in Power project would, upon completion, become Spain’s largest solar farm. Ramón added that “cities must become key energy producers, as they are key energy consumers.”

 

Image of solar panels surrounded by palm trees

 

Ramón further explained that the project is important not just because it uses available municipal land for solar panel installation, but also because the generation of power within the city means that it can easily be transported and distributed to Valencia, reducing the carbon footprint that would be associated with energy delivery from other jurisdictions. Valencia’s city government selected five cemeteries — General, Cabanyal, Campanar, Benimàmet, and Grau — for an installation of nearly 7,000 solar panels, covering 14,339 square meters. City officials predict that, upon completion, Requiem in Power will generate 3,838,530 kWh/year. Enough to provide energy to all municipal buildings and 1,000 economically vulnerable households. The corresponding CO2 savings is 1,019 tons.

The benefits of the Requiem in Power project extend beyond responsible renewable energy generation, however. Job creation is another important project outcome. Ninety-nine jobs were created as part of the installation phase, and another 15 were created for ongoing maintenance of the panels. While the overall number of new jobs is small, it is still significant in a city and country where the employment rate hovers between 50 and 59 percent. Finally, project manager Ramón indicated that energy costs were likely to fall as installed capacity and power generation increased, providing Valencians relief from the trend of increasing utilities costs.