The 182-kilometre high-voltage line from Teruel to Baix Llobregat is not the best solution, but it is essential today given the lack of renewable energy projects in Catalonia. That is the majority opinion of the businessmen -with nuances- about the project to connect the wind and photovoltaic parks of Teruel with the Barcelona area in a private MAT promoted by Forestalia.
Although it is commonly accepted that the generation must be as close as possible to the place where it is consumed, businessmen defend the benefits of the connection with Teruel because they insist that projects are hardly started in Catalonia. In 10 years, the first wind farms to come into operation in Catalonia have been Punta Redona and Los Barrancs in the first quarter of this year. “To ensure the country’s energy, it is not enough to have plates on the roofs, but large parks are needed and that does not seem to be the priority of the Generalitat,” reflects Salvador Sadó, from the employers’ association Foment del Treball. “We don’t have enough capacity, so we have to bring energy from outside and we need the line.”
Why aren’t there enough renewable energy parks in Catalonia to make the new line unnecessary? “For NIMBY”, answers Joan Vila, from Pimec. That acronym hides the phrase in English “in my backyard, no”, which means that although everyone accepts the development of new renewable energies, nobody wants to have mills or plates in their municipality. In Catalonia, neither the city councils nor the Generalitat have promoted enough parks to replace the nuclear power plants that will close in 2030 and which concentrate half of the electricity production today.
Given the difficulty in installing solar panels or wind turbines, it does not seem that there will be too much support in the municipalities through which the high voltage line will pass, or none at all. That is why the role of the Generalitat is essential to authorize or not the MAT and the businessmen ask for compensation for those regions where the high voltage line passes. An example is Falset: a municipality with about 2,800 inhabitants where there will be about 28 towers. One for every 100 inhabitants. On the other hand, there are many other projects such as the wind turbines in the Empordà thing that are still on hold.
From the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Pere Alemany points out that they support the MAT but building it in a different way. The member of the executive committee believes that the designed line is point to point while in the Chamber they believe that it should be a facility to which energy is fed from Catalonia when the parks are built.
The builders of wind energy installations in Catalonia are grouped in the Eoliccat association and obviously bet on parks in the community. “From Eoliccat we have always been in favor of the fact that the energy transition to Catalonia has to be done preferably from renewable projects in the country”, explains Víctor Cusí, president of Eoliccat. “We have also been insistent warning that, if we do not advance with a sufficient implementation, we would find that the alternative would be the importation of renewable energy from other communities, as in this case Aragón”, he adds.
All the business associations consulted recall the warning issued by the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, in 2019 in Barcelona when she warned that the State will not be able to impose generation in Catalonia, but that the central government does have the capacity to impose the electrical networks.
Alemany maintains that the model advocated by the Chamber is that Catalonia, through its facilities in the Pyrenees to generate electricity, can be complemented with renewable generation that comes from Teruel. He says that up to 17 water pumping stations could be used to raise water to high altitudes with the leftover energy to produce electricity when there is no sun or wind.
Vila estimates that a loss of value of the annual GDP for Catalonia from 2032 of 2,000 million euros due to insufficient renewable generation. “ERC, Comuns and the CUP are the parties that make it impossible for renewable generation projects to go ahead,” he adds.
