In Spain, they began to save electricity: shop windows are closed in the evenings, the backlight is turned off

The first day of the government decree promulgated on August 1 was the evening of Wednesday, August 10. Spanish newspapers remind you of exactly what measures are in question.

El Pais, in particular, explains: shops and public buildings that are no longer open after ten in the evening must turn off the lights, and shops also showcases. If shops are open (and in resort towns and towns, let’s say, they are open until late at night in the summer) – shop windows can be lit, and the backlight can be turned on. Administrative buildings of municipalities fall under the new requirements (central administrations began to save electricity back in May, the newspaper recalls).

But this does not mean that all Spanish cities will plunge into darkness. Restrictions on the lighting of monuments, illuminated announcements, signboards and posters do not apply. This means that the Cibeles Fountain in Madrid, the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, ​​the ancient fortress walls in many cities of the country can be illuminated even after 22-00. And even more so, street lights, signs and road signs should not go out.

The decree, the newspaper writes, is designed to “limit energy consumption in the face of rising inflation exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine and the growing risk of cutting off gas supplies from Moscow. In addition, Brussels asked for this.” Starting August 1, EU member states must voluntarily limit gas consumption by 15%, and in the case of Spain and Portugal, which are less dependent on supplies from Russia, this threshold is set at 7%. If the situation worsens, the EU recommendations will turn into strict requirements in the autumn.

And this is just the beginning: by September, all EU countries, including Spain, must submit a new plan that would include even more different austerity measures. It is worth noting, draws the attention of “El Pais”, that even those introduced have caused sharp criticism from the opposition in the person of the People’s Party (Partido Popular). Local administrations, headed by representatives of the PP, attacked the government for not discussing the upcoming measures with the public. The head of the government of the autonomous community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, on the eve of their entry into force, announced that as soon as the decree was approved by the country’s parliament, she would apply to the Constitutional Court to challenge it.

By the way, we are talking not only about shop windows and lighting of buildings: from August 10, the temperature in rooms where air conditioners work should not be lower than 27 degrees in summer, and in winter – no higher than 19 degrees. These standards should be followed by all shops, cultural institutions (cinemas, theaters, museums, concert halls), railway stations and airports (this does not apply to the temperature inside trains and planes, where the air can be cooled in summer and heated more strongly in winter).

Industrial enterprises, hospitals and other medical institutions, hairdressers, laundries and hotel rooms are also removed from the decree. “It is not the same thing to work in the office and in the kitchen of a restaurant,” the journalists write. Moreover, it is specifically stipulated that energy saving measures should not violate the requirements for the temperature regime at workplaces that have been established for a long time. And they are in Spain as follows: where the work is sedentary, inactive – the temperature should be in the range from 17 to 27 degrees, and where the work is mobile – from 14 to 25 degrees. It turns out that bars, restaurants and cafeterias can install air conditioners below the level prescribed by the energy saving plan.

In addition, by the end of September, public buildings must install a system that allows doors facing the street to be closed automatically and tightly.

All of the above restrictions will be in effect until November 2023.

Attitudes towards innovations are different, Spanish newspapers write. Many took the news with understanding. There are enthusiasts who did not even wait for August 10 and voluntarily began to adhere to the norms prescribed in the decree. There are those who are dissatisfied. The most noticeable increase in temperature in shops and markets. Some sellers in large shopping centers are afraid of stuffiness in fitting rooms.

Of course, a lot depends on what the temperature will be on the streets. Now in some regions of Spain it is hot, above 30 (in Seville, for example, these days the thermometer rises to 38 degrees). But autumn is still ahead …

Newspaper websites, news releases of TV channels show the streets of Spanish cities with closed blinds and shop windows that went out late at night. But these streets are by no means dark.

The El Mundo newspaper the day before drew attention to the fact that the luminous billboard of the Schweppes company, which has become one of the peculiar symbols of Madrid, on one of the buildings on the main street of Gran Via (the view with this billboard is especially common in photographs of tourists on social networks) continues to burn at night, no matter what. The owner explained to the newspaper that since the building is a cultural interest, the requirement to turn off the lights does not apply to it. The billboard itself has been burning at night for half a century. But, the author of the article notes, the advertising, which has become a kind of symbol, now burns two hours less a day. And it goes out not at one in the morning, as usual, but at midnight …

An interesting question is whether those who boycott the authorities’ demands for savings will be punished, and how. There are no sanctions in the decree itself. And there is only a reference to the regulations for the installation of thermal equipment in buildings, which, in turn, refers to one of the laws of 1992. This law prescribes fines for companies from 60 thousand euros for minor violations of the rules for installing and using air conditioners and heating devices to 100 million euros for gross violations related to the threat of causing or causing harm to human health, fauna, flora and the environment in general.

El Pais suggests that failure to implement energy saving measures will be considered a light offence. Local authorities should monitor compliance with the new requirements, but they have already warned that it will be difficult to conduct inspections. Yes, and the Minister of Energy of Spain, Teresa Ribera, at a press conference, where the essence of the innovations was explained, said that the measures should be applied flexibly, and the goal is not to punish without fail, but to identify violations, introducing into people’s heads the idea that the requirements must be met .

Meanwhile, on Friday, August 12, the same Ms. Ribera, in an interview with one of the Spanish TV channels, said that the construction of a gas pipeline from Spain to France, frozen in 2019 due to the low, as it seemed then, the efficiency and high cost of the project, may be completed in 8-9 months. This is real, the Minister of Energy stipulated, if France and the EU as a whole approve this project and express their readiness to invest in it. The idea to stretch a new gas pipeline with good throughput from the Iberian Peninsula to the continent arose after restrictions on Russian gas supplies to Europe began. It is believed that the new gas pipeline will reduce dependence on Russian gas by increasing gas supplies from Algeria. Spain’s major suppliers are also Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago.