The wind stop lasts longer four year old in Catalonia. Since the Serra de Vilobí II wind farm was inaugurated in January 2013, in the Les Garrigues region, no new megawatt wind power has been put into operation.
In addition, the most advanced wind project to take advantage of wind energy is the one that promotes Gas Natural Fenosa in Terra Alta, which is long overdue. The project was awarded by the Generalitat in October 2010; therefore, almost seven years, and the project has not yet gone public.
Unfortunately, if the pace of clean energy creation in Catalonia is maintained in these terms, it will be difficult to meet the objectives set in National Agreement for the Energy Transition of Catalonia. This National Agreement establishes that in 2050, 100% of the final energy in Catalonia will be of renewable origin and that in 2030 50% of the electricity will be from clean sources.
Faced with the unflattering outlook (due to the gap between reality and what is planned), business organizations linked to renewable energies in Catalonia (APPA, EolicCat, Pimec, Unef ...) have sounded their alarms. All of them warn that this way it will not be possible to achieve the agreed objectives. For all this, they have made known to the Catalan Administration and to all political forces the need to approve a concrete plan to accelerate the implementation of renewable energies.
Complicated or impossible goals?
The current situation in Catalonia is characterized by a source dependence on nuclear energy in the electricity generation scheme (more than 54% comes from atomic power plants, compared to 18% from renewable sources, according to 2015 data), along with which joins a growth in demand of 0,7% per year.
Can the situation be changed?
If the 2030 objectives are to be achieved (that goal of 50% electricity from renewable sources), starting in 2019, 300 MW of new wind generation and another 300 MW of new generation should be put into service annually. photovoltaic generation. In total, 3.600 MW of wind and the other 3.700 photovoltaic.
In this way, renewables would reach 50% of demand (the rest would come from natural gas burned in combined cycle plants, cogeneration facilities in the industry and a single nuclear reactor still in service).
New regulation
According to the manager of EolicCat: to achieve these objectives in renewables it will be necessary to introduce changes in legal regulations and modify the wind map of Catalonia (where the points of the territory where this resource can be used are established), so that areas that are now incompatible with the implementation of wind farms, are reassessed to host this clean source if possible.
Business associations add that the current system should be changed to promote new wind farms, in order to favor the existence of facilities of more than 10 MW. In addition, it is requested to change the procedure, since now it is only possible to promote them through auctions where the Administration awards them to the highest bidder, in addition to opening the possibility to be made with a "free promotion".
No premiums
The wind energy stop in Catalonia has occurred because the new projects have ceased to be so profitable when the Government eliminated premiums in 2012 they had the new clean energy facilities. The result has been that the entire strategy of the Generalitat to implement new wind farms came to a complete halt.
The Government planned the creation of seven major priority wind development zones (ZDP) distributed throughout Catalonia (769 MW and an investment of 1200 million euros), but all that has remained a dead letter.
In six of these ZPD, the successful bidders have submitted their resignation, since the new conditions of the sector, without remuneration to wind energy beyond the market price, made his projects unviable. Thus, only the area of implementation of the Terra Alta is still “alive” –in Vilalba dels Arcs, La Pobla de Massaluca and Batea, which add up to 90 MW–, awarded to Gas Natural Renovables-Alstom Wind. This project, however, accumulates a long delay.
According to Gas Natural, it knows nothing of the delay, since they have delivered all the required documentation.
The planned has not been fulfilled
Renewables accounted for just over 2015% of the total energy generated in Catalonia in 8. And for electrical uses, 1.268 MW of wind power are installed; 267.345 MW and 24 MW of solar thermoelectric power, among renewable sources. The Catalan Administration admits that the degree of compliance with current planning in Catalonia (the Plan d'Energia i Canvi Climàtic 2012-20120) is "very low", who attributes it to the fact that "its approval coincided with the regulatory change that it stopped the development of renewable energies in Catalonia and in the rest of the State ”.
A new legal framework is needed
According to the renewable energy associations “More than a new planning, what is needed is a regulatory and economic framework that don't be limiting and restrictive with the introduction of renewable energies (there are more than 1.000 MW of wind power authorized and not installed), and a social and territorial agreement that allows their installation in the territory ”.
“In the regulatory part, the Generalitat is working to design a new regulatory framework that is more agile and that help promote renewable energy. With regard to the social and territorial agreement, the National Pact is the framework to begin to debate and design the tools to solve the equation that supposes that renewable installations require a large surface occupation in certain areas of the territory ”.