Spain has launched into the renewables race in a big way, prioritizing this clean energy model as an essential pillar of its ecological program. In recent years, the Government has given the green light to hundreds of photovoltaic and wind power plant projects with the aim of exceeding the sustainability threshold by 2030. And the plan makes a lot of sense: Spain’s geostrategic position and its sunny climate They make the country have a lot of energy potential.
This has caused Empty Spain to gradually fill up with solar farms of all kinds, something that represents a dilemma for farmers and landowners in the Spanish rural world. It has reached the point of having to choose between planting wheat or solar panels. And the second is much more profitable (and controversial).
The projects. The Community of León is experiencing the phenomenon in a very accentuated way. Yesterday, the official community bulletins approved seven new photovoltaic energy projects, some of enormous proportions, in different regions such as El Bierzo, Maragatería, La Cepeda, Órbigo and the southwest of León. To get an idea of its size, the sum of all the territory to be occupied is 825 hectares.
The largest of them, Maragato Solar 1, comes from the multinational Statkraft and will be located between the municipalities of Valderrey and Santiago Millas. It is a facility capable of generating a power of 181 megawatts thanks to a total of 400,000 panels that will occupy only in this case 286 hectares.
The Burgos drama. In less than a year, the processing of more than twenty projects in the province has been carried out, reaching 1,100 installed megawatts and occupying around 2,200 hectares of land, many of them dedicated to cereal cultivation. Like wind farms, these are not spared from criticism. Although the former make it possible to continue cultivating the fields under the blades of the wind turbines, this is not the case under solar panels, where neither grass grows nor cattle could graze.
And then there is the problem of space. A photovoltaic MW takes away two hectares of land. As indicated in this article in Diario de Burgos, just the complex of solar parks in the areas of La Bureba and Valle de Tobalina, with 1.2 million plates designed to produce 595 MW, would jointly occupy three times the the surface of the Úzquiza reservoir or a sixth of the Ebro reservoir.
The idea of ”solar swamps”. Faced with this lack of space in the Spanish rural landscape, the Government has set its sights on reservoirs, water surfaces with enough space to store hundreds of floating solar panels. For this reason, it has reformed the Water Law and is preparing a royal decree that regulates exploitation concessions and facilitates the installation of floating solar plants in the waters of up to 106 reservoirs.
This means that in the coming years, the electric companies will begin to place solar installations on these waters like the one that now only exists in the Sierra de Brava (Badajoz), where Acciona has five floating solar blocks that bring together a total of 3,000 modules. A facility that occupies about 12,000m2, contributing to the network a power of 1,125 MWp. At the moment, the annex to the decree also contemplates three in the Duero basin, 19 in the Ebro basin, 24 in the Guadalquivir basin, 28 in the Guadiana basin, five in the Júcar basin, one in the Miño basin, five in the Segura and 20 in the Tagus.
How do they work? Very similar to ground facilities. In this case, the photovoltaic panels are anchored by mooring cables to the bottom of the reservoir or to the shore in order to prevent them from sailing freely or changing their orientation, in order to obtain the greatest amount of solar energy possible. And those plates are connected to a power cable from the electrical network. According to some experts, this model can help biodiversity since the shadow generated by the plates decreases water evaporation, something necessary in the hottest areas where the levels of the reservoirs are decreasing.
The controversy. However, in many areas of rural Spain, movements against these types of facilities have begun to emerge due to the possible impacts they may have. They criticize the fact that no one has consulted them before launching projects, just as they were not informed decades ago to build the same swamps that flooded valleys and towns. But, above all, they feel victims of the increasing depredation of the territory and the landscape, since these infrastructures threaten the social ecosystems linked to rural tourism, adventure sports and food.
“Many mayors and mayors have contacted us, and we are going to support those municipalities in defense of their interests,” explained the general secretary of Femembalses in this Público article.
Lack of space. Finally, there is the biggest problem: the large amount of land needed to house the solar panels, something the government is trying to deal with. While it is true that many of the activities that take place in the swamps are recreational, the ‘free’ surface in the swamps should always be equal to or greater than 80% of its totality. In other words, the casuistry of each body of water will be studied to calculate the exploitable extension, which may be between 5% and 20% of the total surface area of these spaces. And they cannot be carried out in lakes or lagoons of natural origin.
Images: Acciona | Iberdrola | Mazarron Town Hall
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