The government delegate in Galicia, José Miñones, advanced today in Boborás the granting in Galicia of 56 ecological transition grants to 30 small municipalities for a value of 26.4 million euros of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. José Miñones made this announcement at the City Council of Boborás, which obtained one of the grants of this program, the DUS5000, managed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
“Today in Boborás we see how the Government of Pedro Sánchez extends its hand to small municipalities to advance their green transition and digitization and how we materialize investments and political actions to combat the Demographic Challenge,” said José Miñones. In Boborás, the delegate held a meeting with the mayor, Ana Patricia Torres, and with part of the Local Corporation, with whom he evaluated the project that in Boborás will finance the DUS5000 program with a grant of 102,625.79 euros.
In particular, with this help the Local Administration will be able to face the improvement of the exterior lighting of several points of the city council, with the aim of making it more efficient, reducing energy consumption and the ecological footprint of the City Council.
DUS5000 program in Galicia
The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge is responsible for this line of aid, included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, funded by the EU’s Next Generation funds. The call aims to promote the ecological transition in the municipalities of demographic challenge, financing clean energy projects with up to 100% of the necessary investment.
José Miñones explained that the total budget of the program amounts to 675 million euros, of which 51,232,500 euros are reserved for the projects presented by municipalities of Galicia: “It should be noted that the government approved several enlargements of the initial budget to multiply it by nine.” With this decision, the Government responded to the enormous success of the program, for which it received until November 7, the end of the call, 3,000 applications, 222 of them from municipalities of Galicia.
Projects funded so far in Galicia include energy efficiency improvements, the development of renewable energy facilities and the promotion of sustainable mobility. The program establishes an investment clamp ranging from a minimum of 40,000 euros to a maximum of 3 million, according to the project. The grant covers 85% of it and can reach 100% in specific cases. “In the case of Boborás, the aid granted allows to finance the entire action,” said the delegate.
In the province of Ourense, in addition to Boborás, eight municipalities have so far received 23 grants from this program, amounting to 4.2 million euros. José Miñones pointed out that this list is going to be increased, since there is still a budget available until the total of 51.2 million euros is exhausted.
Supporting the green and digital transition in Boborás
The government delegate recalled that the project approved in Boborás within the framework of the DUS5000 Program complements the aid already received by this City Council of the Government of Spain for the transformation of the exterior lighting of the municipality. This is because the Ministry for the Ecological Transition granted three grants worth 337,211.16 euros to implement in the last two years three projects to improve the energy efficiency of the municipal outdoor lighting of this City Council.
The projects consisted of replacing almost 700 traditional luminaires with LED luminaires of higher performance and efficiency, along with the replacement of control panels. This transformation allows the local government of Boborás to save 70% of the electricity consumption in the areas where it was executed and reduce, consequently, the municipal electricity bill, which is one of the highest expenses that this administration has.
Along with the green transition, José Miñones stressed that the Government works for the digitization of the City of Boborás through the UN-Broadband Program, a program that also finances the Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.
“Through this program we are going to guarantee the connection through very high performance fiber of 675 homes in Boborás, in 153 areas of the municipality that did not have this connection,” said the delegate.
As a novelty, José Miñones advanced that the Government approved the UNICO-Rural Demand program, which will allow that, while the fiber is not installed in these areas, people who want to access the Internet have access by satellite at a fixed price: “We will pay for the installation with an aid of up to 60 euros and reduce the price of the monthly connection to 35 euros per month, to make it competitive and accessible. We are working to offer this service this coming spring.”