Interview with Ignacio de Loyola Gil Puertolas, Head of product and partnerships BBVA Italia

IREN and BBVA launch a sustainable project to generate green energy and reduce citizens’ utility bills

Our Corporate BBVA in Italy and Iren luce, gas and services – the commercial business unit of the Iren Group, Italy’s leading multi-utility – joined forces for the launch of “Project Sustainability”, which allows the creation of a new Renewable Energy Community in Baganzola, a few kilometers from Parma, in a condominium of subsidized housing owned by the Parma 80 Consortium.

We talked about it with Ignacio de Loyola Gil Puertolas, Head of product and partnerships BBVA Italia, to better understand the goals and the details about the partnership.

What is the collaboration about and what are the goals and benefits for citizens?

The main objective of the collaboration is to contribute to the energy transition in the area, thanks to the generation of environmental and economic benefits for the citizens involved.The initiative has been launched in these very weeks and involves the installation on the roof of the condominium of a photovoltaic system with a total power of about 26 kWp.

Thanks to the system it will be possible to produce 100% green energy, avoiding the emission into the atmosphere of 20 tons of CO2 per year and reducing, at the same time, the costs of energy bills for citizens living in the Parma 80 building.

Within the project, the Parma 80 Consortium contributes to promoting a lifestyle based on the social, economic and environmental sustainability of the community, through urban and architectural redevelopment interventions, in line with the urban development strategies of the city of Parma itself.

What might be the prospects of the partnership?

This activity is part of a broader strategic collaboration agreement signed in 2022 by Iren and BBVA in Italy that it has at its core the joint commitment of the two companies to the ecological and digital transition.

In addition, this new agreement represents a step forward in the collaboration between Iren Group and BBVA for the implementation of mutual sustainable strategies, consistent with the framework agreement that, launched in 2019 and linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, provides Iren with a €10 million line of guarantees for green initiatives and projects from the Basque bank.

What might be the next steps?

This is an important step in the collaboration between the two companies, whose main goal is to keep developing initiatives with an environmental, digital and sustainable impact on society.

However, this is only the first milestone throughout a common journey, in which we are both committed to working side by side on such impactful projects, both for the benefit of our customers and for a more sustainable future.