HORTOLANDIA, Brazil, Feb 26 (IPS) – Nearly all the pieces appears new or below building within the southern Brazilian metropolis of Hortolandia, from its huge avenues and cable-stayed bridge to its massive buildings and riverside parks.
Even the town corridor itself, the Palace of Migrants, will rejoice its first anniversary on Could 29, and its primary car parking zone remains to be below building, however already bears the town’s new hallmark: photo voltaic panels on its roofs.
A municipality of 240,000 individuals positioned 110 kilometers from São Paulo, Hortolandia seized the chance introduced by cost-effective know-how and authorized incentives to generate its personal electrical energy for public sector consumption.
The 21 photovoltaic vegetation constructed since 2023, some within the last levels of completion, will save 80% of the town corridor’s electrical energy prices, based on Fernanda Candido de Oliveira, director of the Lighting Division of the municipal Public Works Board.
The remaining 20% will likely be coated by the vitality effectivity program, which started earlier and has already changed all previous city lighting with LED lamps. On this approach, the town will turn into self-sufficient in electrical energy, limiting bills on this space to distribution community utilization charges and upkeep prices.
Along with the 26,500 public lighting factors, the self-generation system will energy 200 municipal service places, saving roughly 4.5 million reais (US$ 800,000) yearly, which will likely be reinvested in numerous sectors of native administration.
Fourteen faculties, 4 well being models and a sports activities stadium have their roofs coated with photo voltaic panels. In whole, 5,000 panels are already producing vitality, and others already put in will quickly start operation.
Town corridor will home three photovoltaic vegetation, one on its roof and two in its parking tons, certainly one of which remains to be below building. In whole, it’s going to have 1,800 panels.
The plant for the brand new social occasions middle, which is nearing completion, can have 1,568 photo voltaic panels already seen from the cable-stayed bridge, whose two parallel decks of aerial cables are suspended by three horizontal connecting columns, a construction that symbolizes Hortolandia’s modernization.
Economic system and Setting
The first objective of this system is financial, saving sources for different areas, but it surely additionally advantages the inhabitants, Oliveira famous. “The vitality effectivity of LED lamps allowed us to grant a ten% discount in residents’ electrical energy payments,” she defined.
“We have been the ugly duckling of the Campinas metropolitan area,” which incorporates 20 municipalities and a complete of three.5 million inhabitants, however “now we’re a novel case in these improvements,” a reference level, she proudly acknowledged.
“Photo voltaic vitality hit the mark, a rare achievement,” stated Dirson Pereira da Silva, the receptionist on the Santa Clara Ecological Park, which includes a lagoon at its middle.
After 36 years residing in a metropolis that “buried all its streams,” Araraquara, 170 kilometers away, he returned to his hometown and his ardour for the lagoon in 2023.
The seven parks in Hortolandia, most of them designed to guard watercourses, verify its environmental vocation, which additionally underpins its dedication to photo voltaic vitality.
The municipality has recognized over 50 springs and strives to preserve or restore them as wanted, based on Eduardo Marchetti, Secretary of City Planning and Strategic Administration. This requires sustaining or increasing riparian forests.
Hortolandia is a “tree metropolis” acknowledged in 2023 by the worldwide Arbor Day Basis, a nonprofit group primarily based in Washington that seeks to reforest the world.
Timber Towards Floods
Town used to undergo from floods attributable to the overflowing of the Jacuba stream, with frequent losses for riverside residents and companies. This was overcome by constructing 4 reservoirs and caring for the springs and riparian forests, recalled Marchetti, who has lived within the municipality since beginning.
Timber are additionally a requirement for financing from worldwide banks. For instance, to construct the cable-stayed bridge, the Growth Financial institution of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) required the planting of 120,000 bushes as a situation for its comfortable mortgage.
“Sustaining inexperienced parks has its prices. We misplaced 30,000 bushes because of lack of care, equivalent to eradicating weeds that take their vitamins,” Marchetti famous.
Hortolândia was based in 1991 after separating from Sumaré, a municipality of 280,000 inhabitants. Its territory is small, overlaying 62.4 sq. kilometers.
“Within the Seventies, we have been a rural space that acquired many industries, particularly within the Nineteen Eighties. This led to a inhabitants explosion, accompanied by excessive violence, reaching 102 murders per 100,000 inhabitants,” recalled Josemil Rodrigues, a journalist who advises Mayor José Nazareno Gomes.
Planning for Transformation
The event of the brand new metropolis acquired a big increase beginning in 2005 below Mayor Angelo Perugini, “a visionary” to his supporters.
In 2005, sewage protection was restricted to 2% of wastewater; now it reaches 98%, with 100% therapy. Solely 40% of the streets have been paved; now 99% are, and homicides have dropped to 13 per 100,000 inhabitants, based on knowledge offered by the journalist.
“Lengthy-term planning was key. Hortolandia’s vocation is to be a sensible and sustainable metropolis,” he acknowledged. Photo voltaic vitality is a part of this objective and has made the town a nationwide reference, Rodrigues emphasised.
The photovoltaic panels are a logical consequence of the environmental imaginative and prescient of the town’s leaders. The present mayor, Gomes, was the Setting Secretary below his predecessor, Perugini, who was elected 4 occasions beginning in 2005 and died of COVID-19 in 2021, initially of a brand new municipal time period.
Moreover, environmental training is a precedence within the “political-pedagogical undertaking” of all municipal faculties, noticed Donizete Faria, director of the Division of Pedagogy and Persevering with Schooling on the Schooling Secretariat.
Photo voltaic vitality is simply too latest to evaluate its influence on training, however vitality effectivity has been a everlasting subject in faculties for a few years, together with by means of visits to ecological parks and the Environmental Observatory, a specialised middle positioned in Santa Clara Park.
The truth that 14 faculties have photo voltaic vegetation on their roofs will assist “kids take possession of the photovoltaic panels, see them, and have hands-on classes about renewable vitality and consumption,” Faria hopes.
“We wish to develop, but in addition protect. Town should take care of its atmosphere, search new methods to consider vitality, water, and consumption,” he concluded.
The operation and upkeep of the photovoltaic community put in within the metropolis value little. Methods analyst Alessandro Alves screens all the pieces from his laptop related to all of the vegetation, and electrical engineer Renan Queiroz intervenes if repairs are wanted.
For the reason that vegetation have a assured lifespan of 25 years and the inverters final 10 years, there will likely be no urgent issues, equivalent to gear disposal or recycling, for a few years, Queiroz reassured.
Hortolandia’s city grasp plan has an environmental focus, because of flooding and the necessity to handle water sources, Marchetti defined. Water reuse, inexperienced roofs, and photo voltaic vitality are a part of the tax incentives for property homeowners.
The brand new plan, already accredited, maintains the concentrate on the atmosphere however provides technological improvements. “We’re a technological metropolis,” with a number of IT and pharmaceutical corporations, concluded the Secretary of City Planning.
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