Second in Spain only to Castile and León in wind energy production is Aragón. The region is also home to one of the oldest grid-connected wind farms in Spain; Iberdrola’s La Plana 3, which was commissioned in 1996. The area around La Plana 3 near the town of La Muela, has seen significant construction of wind farms, to the point where turbines are visible from horizon to horizon.
This industrial-scale build-out has resulted in some negative externalities. The Director General of Aragón’s Department of Energy and Mines, Yolanda Valles, admits that the Government was slower than they would have liked to be in terms of both directing industry activity and public engagement. She suggests that fixing the areas that can be developed, rather than letting industry determine this (as Castile and León have done), is important. Likewise, she is cognisant of the fact that if the Government is not leading the public discourse, the media will fill the vacuum.
The impacts on bird and bat populations have also been a focus of the wind build-out, here and elsewhere. Whilst technology and monitoring certainly helps, it is recognised that there is still some impact. This is growing increasingly important as the industry expands further; in Aragón there is an expected tripling of current capacity over the coming decade.
Whilst lessons have been learned (for example, solar development is forbidden in irrigated agricultural areas, mining tenements and areas producing wine and olives) there is also concern about the capacity of government, especially local and regional governments, to manage the permitting of all the projects in the pipeline. As I’ve seen in numerous other places, the need for planning and regulatory staff to help process project permitting applications is a real handbrake on the energy transition.
The rapid growth of the industry has also been met with resistance by the residents of the so-called ‘empty Spain’. In the province of Teruel, in southern Aragón, the Teruel Existe (Teruel Exists) movement has grown into a political party fighting for greater recognition of those living in rural areas. Part of their platform revolves around the protection of the environment, agricultural sector and landscapes, which are important to the tourism sector, from large-scale energy developments. Ernesto Romeo, a senior member of Teruel Existe explains that whilst they are not opposed to renewable energy, the group sees places like Teruel as a “sacrifice zone”. Poor parts of the country, like theirs – and much of the rural interior – are producing power for richer parts, who aren’t required to host the infrastructure. Likewise, one of the true assets of these regions are the unspoilt landscapes, which are under threat from poorly controlled project development. Whilst environmental impacts are considered by regulators, impacts on the visual amenity of landscapes typically are not.
As part of the renewable build-out, people like Ernesto would prefer to see a focus on improving energy efficiency, using electricity closer to where it is generated, encouraging more community energy projects and better planning development of large projects in areas that aren’t environmentally sensitive. This comes back to the planning approach referenced here. Environmental protections are one thing, but now only one key consideration for planners.
On the workforce side, Professor Sabina Scarpellini from the University of Zaragoza feels that, in Spain at least, there are not a lot of high-quality jobs in the renewable roll-out directly; the more lucrative jobs tend to be found in the adjacent manufacturing and R&D sectors. These findings contribute to the argument that having industry clusters, and a broader supply chain approach (similar to what I saw in Navarre), provides a distinct advantage.
