The Spanish northwest was pioneer in the implementation of wind energy in the 90s, being among the world leaders in the development of this new technology.
But the desert came after the initial surge and the proliferation of parks in rural areas. significantly improving local economies through municipal taxes and fees, income from forest owners and skilled employment, first during construction and then during operation, in addition to the relevant tax obligations towards the autonomous community and the State.
Much less has been done andn in the last ten years than in the previous tendue to the legal uncertainty in which we operate.
Preventive suspensions
In the midst of the energy transition, the decade began with a pandemic and Russia invading Ukraine; the Xunta of Galicia decrees a one-and-a-half-year moratorium –period during which the wind registry remained closed– and, finally, the Galician justice system issued preventive suspension orders for almost all the projects that had obtained mandatory approval for more than a year. Environmental impact study (DIA) by the County of Galicia.
It should be noted that the DIA complies with demanding and guaranteed legislation, which includes regulations on town planning, heritage and the environment in the broad sense. In fact, the administrative services of the Galician Government did not grant a DIA to half of the projects presented.
There are currently about 4,000 MW, with DIA and building permits in force, subject to contentious proceedings or preventive suspension by the High Court of Justice of Galicia (TSJG)after the denunciation of anti-wind platforms which benefit from free justice.
59 suspended parks
Currently, 59 parks are suspendedthe last 7 this week. However, last December, the Supreme Court overturned the TSJG’s cancellation of the Corme Park in La Coruña, giving it its approval.
It was then that the Galician court submitted a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in which it questioned a fundamental law of the State of 2013, which is why it found itself immersed in an unresolved contentious-administrative process. practically all the wind projects in Galicia, more than a hundred.
And meanwhile, the above-mentioned preventive suspensions are drippingwhich, moreover, affect the same areas that the PP had approved in the Xunta government and that were ratified by the subsequent bipartisanship formed by the PSG-PSOE and the BNG (2006-2009). In other words, there was agreement of the three parties which form the current parliamentary arch.
Retroactive character
But what is the real dimension of this situation? Well, by going against a state law on environmental matters, all infrastructures and installations subject to impact declarations are called into question (roads, railways, livestock farms, paper mills, industries of various types – steel, chemical, extractive, energy, etc.) connections throughout the Spanish territory.
We are in the event of possible invalidation which could even be retroactivewhether it was necessary to review the EIAs of the last eleven years, since the entry into force of the aforementioned State law. This is the seriousness of the problem, which can have consequences as unexpected as they are devastating.
green industry
On the other hand, there is at least 32 major industrial projects that will require 8 terawatt hours (TWh) electricity produced by newly implemented renewable energies. This energy can only be windbecause hydraulics is full and photovoltaics are little developed in Galicia, at least for the moment.
The realization of these important business propositions depends on the continuation and acceleration of wind development. Because all businesses and industrial projects must be green, otherwise they will not prosper. Green as wind energy.
Investment and employment
These thirty projects would bring with them approximately 6.3 billion euros of investments and the creation of some 14,000 jobsbetween direct and indirect. This is confirmed by the study commissioned by EGA from the consulting firm Deloitte, made public last year. As if that were not enough, this summer we have seen the announcement of multi-million dollar investments in other autonomous communities.
A green hydrogen plant in Andalusia will exceed 2 billion dollars and will create abundant and quality jobs, a plant that will have to be powered by new renewable energies. The mega data network in Aragon that Amazon will build will cost almost 16 billion euros in ten years and announces almost seven thousand jobs.
In Avilés, the large factory of the company Windar Renovables is a priority project… Meanwhile, in Galicia We have lost eight wind turbines in the last ten yearsand there are only two left. We are in free fall.
legal quagmire
The situation could not be more paradoxical. We have a renewable and indigenous resource that offers us excellent opportunities for industrial development, stable and rural employment, cheap prices for consumers and competitive prices for electro-intensive companies, energy independencein addition to a much cleaner atmosphere by avoiding huge CO₂ emissions, thus contributing effectively to combating climate change.
However, We are slowed down and plunged into a judicial quagmire which leads to unbearable delays for investors and technologies. Standing still means turning around.
Delicate and complex situation
Because let’s not forget that Galicia is subject to the import of 66% of fossil fuels in a delicate and complex situation, described not only by the judicial confusion, but also for the energy transition and the decarbonization of the economya geopolitical context of secret global war and energy dependence, and in the midst of a climate emergency.
These are all such serious and earnest arguments that, with the industrial disasterMuch more renewable production is urgently needed. Last year, not a single new MW was installed in Galicia.
At the end of the current year it should reach 53 MW. In the period 2020-24, we would add only 135 MW, while in 2019, 418 were installed. The figures for the installation of new electricity installations in recent years are devastating. We are going backwards and against the current.
Plumbing of electrical consumption
Finally, there is a very representative piece of information for all this agglomeration of figures and quantities that we are dealing with. The consumption of electricity, and not of energy, Electricity consumption in Galicia has fallen by 36% in the last four years.
This is an indicator that should put us on alert. If the EU and Spain have warned against the urgent need to accelerate the development of renewable energiessimplification of procedures, not environmental rigor, in the midst of the green electrification of the economy, Galicia is doing the opposite.
This is the absurd crossroads where we find ourselves in Galiciawhich has abundant quality wind. A crossroads that could infect and spread to the rest of Spain.
Manuel Pazo Paniagua is president of the Galician Wind Turbine Association
