The plenary session of the City council of San Sebastián decided, 1st of January of 2004, to transfer all the rights and obligations of the Direction of Economic Development, Employment and Commerce of the City council of San Sebastián to the Society “Fomento de San Sebastián, S.A.”. The society has the objectives of the promotion, development and involution of the economic and social activities that contribute, direct and indirectly to impel the development of the productive system and the use of the territorial scope of Donostia-San Sebastián, harnessing all type of generating initiatives of wealth, economic activity and employment.
The approach of Fomento de San Sebastián in the development of renewable energies and energy efficiency is based in a series of strategic objectives, initiatives and implementation areas:  
- Contributing to the design of the local environmental public policy in an integrated way.
- Promoting sustainable economic initiatives that boost energy efficiency and use of renewable energies.
- Development of a local economic network linked to energy efficiency and renewable energies.
- Transforming the proposed model into a referent at European level.

From Fomento de San Sebastián innovative initiatives are promoted in this area, economically sustainable, joining the environmental needs identified at local and global level with the development opportunities.

 

The initiatives promoted have been: 

Better use of the municipal resources for the development of renewable energy  installations. The objective is to valorise the urban space of the city developing  technical installations, economic and environmentally feasible with the collaboration of  the municipality departments.
Fomento de San Sebastián in its strategy to generate new business spaces  technologically advanced, such as the Audiovisual innovation cluster, is engaged with  increasing energy efficiency in the use of energy as a profitability criteria. In this sense,  its promotes in the architectonic project different initiatives in the area of thermal isolation, electric systems of last generation or energetic systems based in renewable
energies (solar thermal, PV, geothermic, etc).

Fomento San Sebastián has promoted several initiatives to integrate energy  sustainability and efficiency in the city life, such as the initiative of using PV for the  Christmas illumination of the city and the initiative of using municipal roofs for installing  photovoltaic installations.

 

Fomento de San Sebastian has an experience in participation and management of cooperation projects within the programs @lis, Urban, Equal, Interreg, 5FP, 6FP, Urbal, etc.

 

Some of the lasts experiences in coordination of European cooperation projects are the  projects Tecforlife, in the 5FP, and the projects CineSpace and Civitas, from the 6FP.

 

Some other European co-operation projects where Fomento de San Sebastian has  participated are: “Now: Emekin Programme”, “Upf Project - Untraditional Partners  Formation”, “Information And Communication Technologies As A Supporting Tool For  The Micro-Companies 2002-2003”, “Cibernarium”, “Emplenet”, “Creative Industry”,  “Econet”, “Elaboration Of A Methodology, Actions And Computer Application To Work  On The Occupational E-Learning Of People In Active Search For An Employment”,  “On-Line Training Actions In New Professional Profiles”, “New Technologies”.

FSS is the Coordinator of the project. It is involved in each WP and is the responsible  of public buildings and lighting areas where pilots and replications will be carried out.  This organisation also contribute in the definition of energy efficiency policies in Spain  and is responsible of other public buildings and lighting areas. In fact FSS, is a  partner  representing the Town Hall of San Sebastian. Also this public partner have the policy  power for scaling the solution to other building and lighting areas in San Sebastian as  well as transfer the project experience through its networks to other public organisations and private sectors at local and European level, assuring a long term impact.