General Description

Vila Nova de Gaia is located in the North of Portugal in the second biggest urban area of the country. This area is formed by nine municipalities and has 1,2 million inhabitants. Vila Nova de Gaia is the biggest municipality of this area, with 170km2 and 290.000 inhabitants, the most populated municipality of the north of Portugal.

Gaia is renowned for its commercial and industrial importance and has a notable geographical diversity, characterized by a coastline, a riverbank and both urban and countryside areas. Gaia is international renowned because of the well known Porto Wine and the richness of its patrimony from which we can Serra do Pilar, classified as world heritage, and the nostalgic marginal area make Gaia a beauty territory to visit and live.

General assessment of the potential per RES in the region

Wind

		No potential for relevant projects;
		Some potential for micro - generation.

Hydro

		Crestuma Lever: 117 MW;
		Mini Hydro 1: 0,6 MW;
		Mini Hydro 2: disconnected;
		No conditions for new traditional hydro projects;
		Potential for hydro projects in water distribution infrastructures.

Wave and tide

		Not studied yet;
		Presence of Atlantic sea and Douro river.

Biomass and wastes

		Landfill gas: 1 MW (exploration in 2004);
		Potential for Anaerobic Digestion projects;
		Potential for biomass use in thermal processes.

Solar (thermal)

		Installed: 5 000 m2(estimated);
		Current market: < 100 m2 per year
		Potential: > 50 000 m2 (5 000 m2 per year)

Solar (PV)

		No market;
		Existing PVs projects in traffic and telecommunications infrastructures;
		Potential for integration of PVs in buildings.

Energy characteristics of the region

In 1998, Vila Nova de Gaia total energy consumption was 329 thousand toe (tone of oil equivalent). Gaia, like Portugal as whole, is strongly dependent on fossil fuels to meet its rising energy demand. From 1990 until 1998, energy consumption increased in average by 7% per annum and is currently over 400 thousand toe.

The energy consumption per capita is in average 1.2 toe, significantly below the European per capita energy consumption of 3.8 toe (in 1998). Although per capita energy consumption in Gaia is low, comparing to the European average, it can not be considered as an energy efficiency indicator. This relatively low energy consumption is the result of the moderate climate and due to the social economic reasons that place Gaia in an EU Objective 1 region.

From Figure 1 and Table 1, it can be said that energy use in Gaia increased quite rapidly over the last decade. In 1998 total energy use had increased by almost 60% from 1990 total.

From 1990 to 1998 the use of diesel fuel increased to an astonishing rate of 16% per annum.

Table 1. Energy use from 1990 to 1998.

 

Figure 1. Current trend in energy use (Gaia).

The following graph presents a breakdown of energy consumption by economic sector. From the graph, it is important to emphasise the importance of the transport sector energy consumption, which is responsible for 47% of the total energy use in Gaia. Conversely, the industrial sector represents around 20% of the total energy use, while households account for 14%.

Figure 2. Breakdown of energy use by sector (Gaia)

Diesel and electricity are the most important energy forms in use in Gaia, representing respectively 35% and 25% of total energy consumption, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Breakdown of energy use

Although the graphs and tables presented in this section do not show, a small share of energy used in Gaia is derived from renewable sources. In effect, there is a 117 MW hydro power station located in Gaia and there is also biomass use for space heating and a small amount of domestic solar thermal systems. It was estimated that the overall contribution of renewable energy is about 9% of the total energy consumption in Gaia.

Legislation (Source: DGE)

The publication of legislation of special relevance to electricity production from RES, particularly includes, inter alia, the following:

		Ministerial Order (“Portaria”) no. 764/2002 of 1 July – Establishing the tariff for low voltage electricity production facilities, licensed under the terms of Decree Law no. 68/2002;
		Decree Law no. 97/2002 of 12 April – Creating the Entidade Reguladora dos Servicos Energeticos (“Energy Services Regulatory Authority”) and approving its respective articles of association;
		Decree Law no. 68/2002 of 25 March – Regulating low voltage electricity production activities;
		Ministerial Order no. 295/2002 of 19 March – Regulating the procedure for obtaining electricity production licences for small hydroelectric power plants;
		Decree Law no. 339-C/2001 of 29 December – Altering Decree Law no.168/99 of 18 May, which revised the regime applicable to the payment for electricity production, under the Independent Electricity System’s “special regime” production;
		Decree Law no. 313/2001 of 10 December – Altering Decree Law no. 583/99 of 13 December, revising the regulations on operating conditions and tariffs on the combined production of heat and electricity activities;
		Decree Law no. 312/2001 of 10 December – Defining the new management regime for electricity delivery capacity on Public Service Electricity Grids produced by Independent Electricity System power plants;
		Decree Law no. 538/1999 of 13 December – Reviewing the cogenerating activities regime;
		Decree Law no. 168/1999 of 18 May – Reviewing the regime applicable to electricity production activities, under the terms of SEI (Independent Electricity System), based on the use of renewable sources or industrial, agricultural or urban waste;
		Decree Law no. 313/1995 of 24 November – Establishing the SEI juridical regime on the electricity production activities of hydroelectric power plants of up to 10 MVA, in addition to electricity production from renewable energies.

Promotional policies for RES (Souce: DGE)

There are essentially two direct support mechanisms for electricity production from RES in Portugal: a juridical regime establishing differentiated payments based on the type of technology and an operating regime for electricity production from renewable sources and a support measure for investment in RES based energy production projects.

Decree Law no. 168/99 of 18 May, which establishes a differentiated tariff for electricity production from RES, owing to its environmental benefits, was recently updated and improved by Decree Law no. 339-C/2001 of 29 December, which altered the former legislation and revised the regime applicable to SEI electricity production activities.

Financial incentives include the creation of MAPE, a support regime under the scope of the Third Community Framework Support for Portugal for investment in electricity production equipment from RES, natural gas or RES cogeneration equipment and operations designed to promote the rational use of energy. The MAPE is regulated by Ministerial Order no. 198/2001 of 13 March and the alterations contained in Ministerial Order no. 383/2002 of 10 April, as part of Section 2 of the POE (“Operating Programme for the Economy”) under the Community Framework Support Programme in force between 2000 e 2006.

In terms of Section 3 of the POE, reference should also be made to the “Support Measure for the Modernisation and Development of Energy Infrastructures”, designed to, inter alia, support investment projects in public transport infrastructures and electricity and natural gas distribution.