The LIFE SUSTAINHUTS (or Sustainable Huts) project aims at making 12 mountain huts from 4 European countries (Spain, Italy, Slovenia and France) more energy efficient by reducing their pollutant emissions. The project has a planned duration of 4 years and has received funding from LIFE programme, EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action.
In particular, an optimization of energy management in the chosen mountain huts will be performed, by improving the insulation and installing renewable energy-based technologies, including a complete system of production, storage and use of renewable hydrogen in one of the Aragonese huts, Bachimaña.
These actions aim to achieve an improvement in energy efficiency by 20%, a reduction of CO2 emissions in 10 tonnes and NOX (nitrogen oxides) in 0.06 tonnes per year and hut, and a reduction of about 15 helicopter trips per year required to supply the fuel, with an estimated saving of 1.5 tonnes per year of kerosene.
The consortium is integrated by the following members: Foundation for the Development of New Hydrogen Technologies in Aragon (coordinator), Aragonese Mountaineering Federation (Spain), Italian Alpine Club Turin section (Italy), Environmental Park (Italy), Slovenia Mountain Partnership, Slovenia’s Hydrogen Technology Centre, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and the French Federation of Mountaineering & Alpine Clubs (France), who joined the project after its beginning. Previously, the project counted on a Romanian partner, Transilvania University of Brașov, although they left the project after the first year of development.