Spanish Province Catalonia to Harness Wind Power

In a welcome move for Catalonia, administrative obstacles and restrictions are abolished by the Parliament and a more agile procedure for processing permits to install renewable energy has been established, in order to favor self-production systems in buildings, homes, and public spaces.

The recent decree recovers articles of the Climate Change Law annulled by the Constitutional Court once its wording has been modified, such as those that set objectives to reduce CO2 emissions by 2020, electrify the ports of the Generalitat or implement electric mobility in transport.

The Minister of Enterprise and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón, has defended the decree in the plenary of the Parliament and has admitted that Catalonia is well below EU regulations, as it currently produces only 1,270 megawatts of wind energy and 273 photovoltaic annually even as the target produce is  4,000 and 6,000 megawatts respectively.

“There is a long way to go,” Chacón said while advocating to accelerate the approval of the Energy Transition Law and the creation of the Catalan Energy Agency. “Neither the planet nor our country can wait any longer, and we can make all the criticisms we want to what has been done in the past, but we must move from words to deeds,” he stressed.

Citizens have lamented that Catalonia is “in line” for renewable energy and stressed that the last wind farm inauguration in this community took place in January 2013. The lawmakers there have positively valued the decree but have warned that it commits little and that it can cause conflicts if the Energy Transition Law is not urgently approved.

From the groups that support the Government, ERC has reproached that it has been lost almost a decade and now Catalonia is a desert in renewables, so there is a risk of having to make a transition led by Ibex companies seeking speculation.