The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has approved the prior (provisional) administrative authorization for the construction of the very high voltage line (400 kV) from Valmuel to Begues, according to the BOE, which includes 12 wind farms and a photovoltaic park located in Teruel.
This is the large electricity evacuation line in charge of carrying renewable energy from the large green battery of Aragón de Forestalia to the Barcelona region.
This prior authorization is one more step in the administrative procedure that this file is following, but it has significant value, since it shows that the project continues to cover stages and overcome obstacles despite the uncertainties surrounding this initiative.
However, the final administrative authorization for construction is conditional on the “conformity” of the Generalitat, which must issue a report on biodiversity and adopt an agreement that will be decisive for obtaining the final green light.
Coinciding with this provisional approval, the Minister of Climate Action, David Mascort, lashes out at the Central Administration, which he accuses of “acting very unfairly towards the Generalitat”, of wanting to “transfer responsibility” to the Catalan Administration and to submit it to “pressure” to give its green light.The Generalitat has not yet defined whether or not it supports the project.
According to various sources, in this case the central administration and the Generalitat are throwing balls at each other’s roof in the face of a highly complex project that has garnered strong opposition in the municipalities through which it would pass.
The provisional construction authorization obtained by the developer company of the MAT Valmuel-Begues is very routine, since this step is defined by the established legal procedure, which sets obligatory administrative milestones in the processing (in this case, the term had expired July 14). What will really be relevant for the future of the line is whether it will obtain final construction authorization, something that the central government must agree (or not) before January 14, 2024.
But all this, in turn, depends on a report on biodiversity that the Generalitat must prepare to assess the impacts of this line.
The laying of the MAT Valmuel-Begues obtained a positive environmental impact statement from the Ministry in April, but the green light is conditional on a report on fauna and natural spaces to be issued by the Generalitat. The project, therefore, will require “conformity” from the Generalitat in order to obtain administrative authorization, according to the ministerial resolution taken in April
The Councilor for Climate Action, David Mascort, recalled that this is “a competence of the State” and accused the central administration of “being very disloyal towards the Generalitat” and of “wanting to transfer responsibility” to the Catalan Administration .
The minister referred to this atypical situation, since an environmental authorization that is the responsibility of the State is conditional on a biodiversity report from the Generalitat. “Conditioning the authorization to a technical report on biodiversity is wanting to transfer responsibility, when the competence and responsibility is yours (of the State)”, he declared. Therefore, he questioned this procedure for technical reasons. “Things should be done just the other way around; first the reports are made and then they are authorized or not authorized (the projects)”.
Marc Vilahur, general director of Polítiques Ambientals i Medi Natural, expressed himself in similar terms a few days ago. “It is as if the State authorized the circulation of a train conditioned to the fact that the safety reports say that the safety is correct. “Don’t listen, that’s not the case, when you have the security report, then you authorize it,” Vilahur argues.
Sources close to the Ministry for Ecological Transition express the discomfort caused by this impasse and criticize the Generalitat’s tactic, pointing out that “it is very comfortable to say that the fault (of the decision) was ours for saying yes, or that it was ours for saying no”.
Minister Mascort says he does not know what the Medi Natural technicians will say. “They will make their report. And if the report is favorable, there will be a favorable report; and if it is unfavorable, it will be unfavorable. And I cannot advance how it will be because I do not know, but it is true that they are lines that cause a lot of problems for the country’s biodiversity,” he added.
Mascort interprets that the central government intends to “impose its energy model through the back door.”
And, in this sense, he reiterated that “the model of large power lines that cross the country is not our model”, since the Government is inclined towards a model of distributed generation of energy sources in the territory but not of large power lines. transportation and large parks. The minister says that the State has crossed some red lines marked by the “Catalan model”, which seeks that clean energy be produced in a “territorialized (distributed), participatory” manner and with minimal impacts on the natural environment.
But the pronouncement of the Generalitat on the line is in turn conditional on the developer company presenting a proposal “that demonstrates that it takes into account the full environmental integrity of the territory and that it will adopt all the appropriate corrective and compensatory measures so that the environmental impact be null or the minimum impossible”, Marc Vilahur declared to this newspaper. For the general director, if the environmental impact is unaffordable, he will issue a negative report.
The reports that the company has submitted so far to support its plan provide insufficient information (on the impacts and necessary environmental rectification measures); and that “with insufficient information, a project cannot have a favorable environmental assessment,” he says.
Vilahur is waiting for the developer company to provide more detailed information on the measures that should be taken to minimize the damage.
The promoters of the future high-voltage line designed to link Aragon with the Barcelona area must take measures to protect the populations of Bonelli’s eagle and golden eagle, among other protected species, in order to bend the Government’s starting position.
To avoid interfering with critical areas for Bonelli’s eagles, measures should be taken that may mean modifications to the layout or burying some sections, as has been established for Aragon.
Sources from the Forestalia company stressed a few days ago, for their part, that “we will try to comply with everything that both the central and regional administrations set for us” and that it is open to possible changes to the layout or burial points to minimize the impact.
However, they specify that burying a large part of the line would be “economically unfeasible”, it would make the project up to 8 times more expensive in relation to an overhead line and it would be technically complex”, they add, since it would force the opening of a level of tens of meters wide in the mountain in a work of great complexity due to its orography.
“There are already underground sections planned on the Valmuel-Begues line, it remains to be seen if more should be included. We are working to mitigate the impact and improve the project in sections of the river or protect birds”, says Forestalia with a conciliatory tone.
