Wind energy enters the Costa Brava

Endesa will start building a wind farm in La Jonquera in 2024 after the Department of Climate Action yesterday gave its approval to the environmental impact statement of its Galatea project. There will be nine wind turbines erected on the Albera mountain range, in non-protected areas, with a total power of 49 megawatts (MW). But these towers of up to 200 meters high above all represent the end of the taboo that had meant that the great electricity demand of the tourist industry of the Empordà and the province of Girona as a whole had progressed without any large generation facility in the area, just a few cogeneration facilities linked to industries. And that is so because there has been a historical opposition of local entities and even city councils to such proposals.

More informationHundreds of renewable projects hang by a thread: race against the clock of the Administrations to avoid a fiascoThe

presentation of renewable energies of the Generalitat, created as a result of the law on the matter approved by the Govern in 2019, has been the battering ram that has broken that wall gerundense. Its technicians take for good the measures taken by the electric company, which will build and operate the park through its subsidiary Enel Green Power Spain, and give a conditional yes that the company has already indicated that it accepts. One of these clauses is to compensate for the felling of holm oak trees necessary to locate the windmills with three times that amount, and the other obliges the company to share the electricity evacuation line that Endesa itself will have to build to make sense for its wind turbines.

According

to

the

Iaeden-Salvem l'Empordà platform, one of the organizations that have expressed their rejection of Endesa's project, there are two other wind farms in the pipeline in the area: one of 20 MW in the municipality of Capmany and another 30 MW in Agullana.

A spokeswoman for the company said the operation, which will involve an outlay of 50 million euros, is a done

deal.

To comply with the law passed in 2019, Endesa itself has opened a procedure for administrations, entities or local companies to join the financing of the park through loans remunerated from 4% with contributions ranging from 500 to 25,000 euros.

The Galatea project will be the first approach of renewable energies to the Costa Brava and some actors in the energy sector hope that it will not be the only one in the coming weeks. Following statements by the third vice-president and Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, there is speculation that the Council of Ministers will soon approve the Mediterranean Maritime Space Management Plan (POEM). This is a document that should allow the construction of wind farms in the sea and Catalonia, and the Empordà in particular, will be valid sites for such initiatives in this area, considered as an area of high potential for offshore wind.

As soon

as it is approved, the projects that have already come to light will begin to be more solid, and will have to win administrative authorization in the renewable auctions that the Government will subsequently put out to tender.

At the moment there are three promoters who have shown their interest in setting up off the coast of Roses and Jaume Morron, manager of the EolicCat employers' association, is convinced that by 2030 the planned windmills will be up and running, basically due to the State's interest in decarbonizing the Spanish economy and in this objective offshore installations will have to play an important

role.

The Tramuntana project, promoted by the companies Blue Float Energy and Sener, initially envisaged a wind farm with a capacity of 1,000 MW, which would represent about 90% of the demand of the entire province of Girona, and was finally scaled down to win the favors of local authorities.