Energy Central-News Article

Galicia will pass a law so that the benefits of renewables are reinvested in the region. This was announced by the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, during a visit to the facilities of the Sotavento Experimental Wind Farm, in Lugo, in which he also advanced the future creation of a company with which Galicia will assume a leading role in the energy transition. This issue is one of the main debates on the table and Spain aspires to lead renewables in Europe. In fact, the region is one of the major players. The potential of its onshore wind power is unquestionable and"it has an incalculable potential to be at the center of the energy transition that Europe is going to experience," said the leader of the regional PP.

The war in Ukraine and the consequent rise in production costs and raw materials have highlighted the importance of this energy model. Offshore wind power could be key to the region's development. Therefore, Galicia also wants to benefit from its own potential. However, the Xunta's position on the matter has always been somewhat ambiguous: they defend Galicia's potential, but do not want to harm the fishing sector, which could be affected by the implementation of the windmills. However, Rueda clarified that the community cannot lose the opportunity to be a leader in this transition, but neither can it stop looking after its resources.

However, this commitment has also raised criticism from within. Galicia's favorable weather conditions for this type of project led the community to build, over time, more than 150 onshore wind farms and some 4,000 onshore windmills. That it is now planning similar initiatives for new offshore wind farms has also aroused misgivings among fishermen's associations, mainly because of the way in which it could be carried out without harming their activity. But the Xunta always maintained that they would be carried out following all environmental impact protocols and based on expert recommendations.

Benefits for all

In this sense, also during the appearance this Monday, the first vice-president and conselleiro of Economy, Industry and Innovation, Francisco Conde, who accompanied Rueda in the visit, assured that Galicia has the resources, the geographical situation, the conviction and the political stability necessary to be a pioneer in this energy transformation. His department is, precisely, the one that months ago promoted a test to check how offshore wind installations affect, with a project to build a small infrastructure in the middle of the sea, of about 30 megawatts and with a couple of wind turbines. But the regional president himself issued an important warning: that the change must benefit society as a whole. In other words, he stressed that the wealth that can be extracted from its natural resources is also the heritage of all Galicians.

This is not the only novelty. Along the same lines, he announced the creation of a public-private company to participate in renewable initiatives. The head of the Galician Government explained that it would be a company that would follow the model of what is known as a utility, a company in which the Xunta de Galicia would participate together with other public and private actors "to promote new renewable energy projects with a clear intention that part of the benefits generated would have a direct impact throughout Galicia, and especially in the places where they are installed," Rueda said.

How the deployment of renewables can affect territorial imbalance is, in fact, a hot debate at the moment. It even crosses political sensitivities. The spokesman of the BNG in the Congress of Deputies, Néstor Rego, generated some commotion in the Lower House when he recently resolved the issue: "If Madrid wants energy, let it place windmills in the Castellana".

Behind this phrase, there are misgivings and uncertainty as to whether promoting regional industries of this type will not end up causing more harm than good. In the Community of Madrid, to follow the example, they have always maintained that their conditions are not as optimal as those of Galicia for this type of projects, which in the field of production are led by the Galicians together with Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León. The political reaction to this drift, led in the Lower House by regionalist parties such as the BNG or Teruel Existe, is so far one of the main obstacles to the process of change in Spain's energy model.

Galicia will pass a law so that the benefits of renewables are reinvested in the region. This was announced by the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, during a visit to the facilities of the Sotavento Experimental Wind Farm in Lugo, where he also advanced the future creation of a company with which Galicia will assume a leading role in the energy transition. This issue is one of the main debates on the table and Spain aspires to lead renewables in Europe. In fact, the region is one of the major players. The potential of its onshore wind power is unquestionable and"it has an incalculable potential to be at the center of the energy transition that Europe is going to experience," said the leader of the regional PP.