More than ten percent of Lisbon’s electricity is provided by renewable energy sources such as wind and sunlight. The city is also committed to reducing transportation-related pollution and is expanding its public transit system. Siemens is providing solutions in both of these areas.
The city is increasingly turning to solar and wind power for its electricity.
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Nights begin late in Lisbon - but they last a long time. Every evening people stroll through the alleys of the Bairro Alto, where you can hear laughter spilling from the restaurant and apartment windows, which are kept open even in the winter. The streets are the center of life in Lisbon. Still, it can get cold in the Portuguese capital; temperatures often dip below 10 degrees Celsius in the winter. Due to a lack of central heating, many apartments and other buildings operate portable electric heaters that not only warm up the rooms they’re in but also the alleyways, as their heat escapes through open windows and doors.
"Change has to begin in people’s minds, of course," says Prof. José Delgado Domingos. He isn’t bothered by the festive nature of the Portuguese, but he’d like to change their attitude toward energy conservation. Delgado Domingos is the director of Lisbon’s e-nova environmental agency, which is planning an energyefficient future for the metropolis from offices in a nondescript townhouse not far from the Bairro Alto.
With its population of around two million, Lisbon is working hard to expand its public transport system - a step designed to decrease the flood of approximately 400,000 vehicles that travel into the city every day via the Tejo Bridge and other access roads.
The city has launched initiatives to encourage energy conservation and is now in the process of building a recharging network for electric cars that will encompass around 300 stations by the end of 2010 and 700 stations by the end of 2011. A disproportionate number of the capital’s residents currently drive to work, leading to relatively high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Lisbon’s production of 7.5 tons of CO2 per resident and year puts it above the average for the cities investigated for the European Green City Index.
However, for a growing number of residents, the commute to work is becoming more pleasant and environmentally friendly. The city has had electric trams for almost 110 years, as the first streetcar entered service in 1901. However, tourists appear to be the only ones who enjoy the clattering, jingly ride through the Bairro Alto on the old narrow-gauge tracks. By contrast, on the south side of the Tejo River one can see how a modern streetcar system makes a public transport network more energy- efficient and cost-efficient.
Here, 24 Siemens Combino trains link Lisbon’s southern suburbs with the Estação de Pragal railway station via three lines with a total length of around 20 kilometers. Passengers can transfer at the station to a rapid transit train that takes them over the Tejo Bridge and into the city center. In this way, commuters can avoid the hopelessly congested road that shares the same bridge. The Siemens project, comprising the trains, electric system, signaling devices, control center, passenger information system, and project management, is headed by Herbert Seelmann. He gives the clerk at Estação de Pragal a euro for a tram ticket and receives 20 cents in change. The ticket is cheap because the system is still being subsidized. However, as soon as daily passenger volume exceeds 90,000, the system will be able to pay for itself and will no longer require public funding.
This will probably take another few years, however. In the meantime, city planners are thinking about extending the lines.