Tudela, ES

The city of Tudela is located in the Province of Navarra, in the northern part of Spain, and has a population of approximately 35,000 inhabitants. As one Navarra’s leading cities in energy efficient building refurbishment and renewable energy integration, the city of Tudela has long been working on the design of integrated policies to ensure the sustainable development of the city.

In the framework of the ECO-City project, the municipality of Tudela has already retrofitted 146 dwellings covering 12,514 square meters have been refurbished in the social housing neighbourhood of the Lourdes district. The objective of the project was to increase the energy efficiency of these poorly insulated buildings and develop a smart energy management system in the district. The new energy supply system designed within this project integrates several renewable energy sources such as wind energy, electricity from solar panels and thermal energy from passive solar panels and solar collectors. In addition, the municipality secured the sustainability of the whole retrofitting process by assessing the life-cycle of the materials used for the project.

Two different areas of the city have been chosen for the demonstration activities in this project: Queiles and Lourdes. In Queiles, four new low energy buildings will be constructed while four buildings in the Lourdes area will be renovated to increase their energy performance. In Lourdes, different types of buildings have been selected to settle the basis for a complete renewal of the neighbourhood.  Before initiating the renovation process however, the inhabitants of the Lourdes buildings had to be consulted. To speed up the refurbishment process, the city set up an open competition process and promised to cover the costs of the architectural project for the first community of inhabitants reaching an agreement.

As a member of the Replication Cluster, the city of Tudela will have the opportunity to further develop its strategy towards energy efficient refurbishment of residential buildings while sharing its experience with other European smart cities.