About twenty managers of sports facilities (management teams, facilities managers and maintenance managers) have today completed the 5th EFISport Course: Energy Management in Sports Facilities, an excellent slow opportunity to be able to achieve a complete vision of the bases of efficient management of sports facilities from an energy point of view. Throughout the nine training sessions, topics such as consumption monitoring based on Artificial Intelligence, home automation, and the most sustainable water reuse and saving systems have been covered.

Apart from the specific contents of the course, organized by the Catalan sports industry cluster (INDESCAT) together with the Efficient Energy Cluster of Catalonia (CEEC), the program has included face-to-face visits to sports facilities and centers related to the topic discussed: this year spaces such as the Claror Can Caralleu Foundation, CEM Camp del Ferro, CEM Turó de la Peira, Cercle Sabadellès 1856 and Club Natació Sabadell were visited.

Participating professionals were able to learn about specific success stories at each of the facilities visited. Among others, at the Turó de la Peira Municipal Sports Centre, managed by égora, a partner organization of INDESCAT, they have discovered some air conditioning technologies. This equipment has a heated swimming pool with eight lanes and saline (salt water) disinfection treatment. The air conditioning of the pool and the production of hot water is produced through an aerothermia system that takes advantage of the photovoltaic electricity production, coming from the plates located on the roof of the building.

In another of the facilities visited, the CEM Claror Can Caralleu, managed by the INDESCAT partner Fundació Claror, the members of the course learned about different digitization and energy contracting systems. In this sense, it should be noted that one of the center's measures to reduce emissions is the purchase of green energy, which has been done since 2018. In the event of a sharp increase in the price of energy, the center has 'a mix of energy from renewable sources.

Likewise, the course participants have identified central technologies for the production of thermal and solar-electric energy at the CEM Camp del Ferro, managed by the following INDESCAT partners: Unió de Federacions Esportives de Catalunya, Federació Catalana de Patinatge, Eurofitness, among from other entities such as AE Sant Andreu and CP Congrés. The design and construction of the sports complex follows the criteria of passive architecture, which takes into account the climatic conditions of the site with the aim of achieving maximum energy efficiency. The equipment has a solar thermal installation, which can cover a very high percentage (70%) of the demand for sanitary hot water in the sports complex. In addition, the photovoltaic installation generates part of the electricity that the equipment needs to function and that is self-consumed by the building itself.

Club Natació Sabadell, another of the centers visited and which is also a partner of INDESCAT, hosted the session on circular economy applied to the sports sector. The training participants got to know the entity, which focuses all its activity on energy utilization through closed and circular circuits. A few years ago, CN Sabadell turned the club into an entity with almost zero consumption in relation to fossil energies, especially natural gas, needed to meet the heat demands of its facilities.

David Tapias, vice-president of INDESCAT and director of innovation at Fluidra, pointed out that "for years now at INDESCAT we have had the firm intention of accompanying our partners on their journey towards sustainability. We want to be at their side and grow together on this path so that they can achieve the energy transition in the field of the sports industry. From the cluster we have been working to achieve this for more than a decade with activities such as this EFISport Course, which has ended today fifth edition".

"With this training we wanted to make available to our partners the most innovative strategies to optimize the use of energy by reducing consumption and installation costs, as well as offering them practical knowledge to implement technologies , renewable energy and sustainable practices in equipment to minimize the carbon footprint. The managers of sports facilities, who play a relevant role in this transition, now have more knowledge to contribute to positive change", he argues Tapias

For his part, Joaquim Daura, president of the Efficient Energy Cluster of Catalonia (CEEC), explains that "the effects and serious economic consequences of world events that raised the cost of energy forced the sector to efforts to implement savings and energy efficiency measures in order to reduce costs. In this scenario, the CEEC and INDESCAT have joined forces again to organize this training with the aim that the leaders and managers of sports facilities can take another step in their decarbonisation strategy through the use of renewables and energy efficiency solutions".

The 5th EFISport Course has received the support of the General Secretariat of Sport and Physical Activity, the Catalan Energy Institute, ACCIÓ, the Catalan Foundation for Sport, the Diputació de Barcelona, COPLEFC, Gestiona , and the Business Association of Swimming Clubs of Catalonia. The official medium of the course was Instalaciones Deportivas Hoy.