Madrid is not to blame for everything. A clear and Catalan problem is that of the energy transition, the battering ram against climate change. Obviously, including meteorologists on the electoral lists is not resolved.
We leave behind a decade of collapse in the development of renewables in Catalonia. In all this time, the different decrees promoted by the Government of the Generalitat to promote green energy have not borne fruit. Not even in the sweetest of its dreams, Catalonia will be able to meet the objective that, in 2030, 50% of the light will be of renewable origin if this now barely reaches 14%. No energy sovereignty, but quite the opposite: this community will depend even more on the State’s supply when the Ascó and Vandellós nuclear plants are closed.
The 2019 decree, the great hope to correct the accumulated historical deficits, was shipwrecked. So we are stuck in a paradox. On the one hand, this regulation sparked the interest of large developers. Up to 600 proposals for wind and solar parks were submitted. But, on the other hand, the opposition citizen platforms, together with the CUP and some agrarian and rural sectors, rose up against any project. The Catalunya of the no roared again. In the territorial backroom, the struggle between Esquerra and Junts.
So ERC chose to make a change, because “it has to escort the territory.” In 2021, the Government approved another decree that modified the previous one and with which, it is assumed, it was going to promote the take-off of renewables. As? Passing the hot potato to the city councils and conditioning each project to the consensus of the local world.
In other words, what was done was to condemn the promoters to cross the wires in a five-ring circus. That is if they had the energy left to overcome the urban planning commissions and meanwhile face all the bureaucratic paperwork. It takes a minimum of 18 months to obtain approval for a park. Who said 2030? Transition from what? Looks like a joke. Organizations such as EolicCat or Unefcat calculate that the current rate of production via renewables would have to be multiplied by ten if the 50% objective is to be achieved. Impossible.
There is more data: those from Red Eléctrica on the Catalan energy contribution to the rest in 2023. Catalonia only contributes 4.5% of all renewable energy in Spain, far from the records of the State as a whole, where it does go to rhythm that plays. It is worth remembering that the lack of momentum in renewables worsens the subordination to nuclear energy, which is the main energy source here right now, although the Ascó and Vandellòs reactors operate with their expiration dates in sight.
The situation is not attributable to the climate but to political management. I suspect that we will end up seeing how the renewable drought in Catalonia causes nuclear defenders to emerge from under the rocks. Either to fight the State’s plans or to try to avoid its dependence.
