Residual energy use and energy efficiency improvement of European supermarket facilities during the post-COVID and energy crisis period.

Supermarkets are significant consumers of electricity and contribute to the generation of associated pollutant emissions. This will help to mitigate the impact of increased energy costs on the prices of products sold in supermarkets. Therefore, it is essential to reduce energy consumption, starting with the equipment that consumes the most electricity, such as refrigeration, and using the residual thermal energy generated in supermarkets. This paper discusses the impact of rising energy costs in the post-Covid era and during the energy crisis. It evaluates the environmental and energy benefits of implementing energy improvements and utilizing residual energy in real supermarkets. The analysis takes into account the socio-economic characteristics of the EU-27 countries, which affect the economic feasibility of these measures. This would prevent the release of 122 tons of CO2 per year for each supermarket, resulting in energy savings of around 70 % or 305 kWh/m2. The required investments would have a payback period of 4 years.

Energy potential of residue from wood transformation industry in the central metropolitan area of the Principality of Asturias (northwest Spain).

The development of modern cities favours the formation of metropolitan zones with urban and industrial areas. The central metropolitan area (CMA) of the Principality of Asturias (northwest Spain), takes up 9.6% of the territory and represents 78% of its population. The first and second wood transformation industries of the CMA generate rather large amounts of biomass residues suitable for both reclaim and energy valuation considering technical, economic, and environmental restrictions. The results obtained from the evaluation of the biomass and the bioenergy of these residues are 7.9 kt/year and 114.7 TJ/year, respectively. The location for the development of a densified solid biofuels plant to produce pellets from these available residues is proposed for the Siero municipality, which is in the CMA. The plant would have an annual potential production capacity for the conventional pelletization process equivalent to 10 MW of fuel output.