- Bloomberg
MADRID: For over four decades, Maria Jose Nestares’ family has quietly run a vineyard in the Spanish northern region of La Rioja, one of Europe’s largest wine-producing areas.
But about four years ago, when a major turbine maker started building a wind farm next to her winery, she decided to pick a fight with what she sees as a nasty infringement on the otherwise pristine, bucolic community.
“Building plants massively here means we’re taking the brunt of the production of energy that will actually supply Madrid and Barcelona,” said Nestares, a lawyer who owns the namesake winery alongside her sister. “That’s unfair.”
The regional government of La Rioja agreed and last year approved a moratorium for all new energy projects until a landscape law is passed.
Nestares’ argument embodies a tension between Spain’s rural and urban communities that’s been growing over the years.
The vast majority of Spain’s landmass – around 70% – is sparsely populated and residents of those regions have felt for decades they have been overlooked by the national government.
The areas, known in many parts as La España vacía, or “empty Spain,” have craved more locally beneficial investments, and they’re eager to have their concerns heard.
Blocking renewable installations that boost the economies of faraway cities more than their rural source is just one way to do it.
Even if it means putting the country’s climate ambitions at risk.
Last year, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government announced a national target to generate 81% of all energy from clean sources by 2030.
This requires nearly doubling current wind capacity to 62GW by the end of the decade – something that analysts have said would be difficult to achieve no matter what.
“The goals are so ambitious that they represent their own main hurdle,” said Javier Pamos, an analyst at Aurora Energy Research Ltd. Opposition to turbines in the countryside isn’t helping and new regulations are a constant threat.
The region of Galicia, which is about 98% rural, passed a proposal late last year to force new and repowered wind power generators in the northwest territory to sell at least half of the electricity they produce to local companies through power purchase agreements.
The proposal was strongly criticised by Spain’s wind lobby AEE and other industry groups for creating possible market distortions and an unfavourable investment climate in the region. — Bloomberg
