Aragón will become a power in renewable energies with the billion-dollar investment in progress.
Only half a hundred wind farms under construction, mainly in the province of Zaragoza, will almost double the installed wind energy capacity in the last thirty years.
The official data of Red Eléctrica Española (REE) indicate that there are currently 1,929 megawatts of wind turbines in service, to which a further 1,620 will be added in a few months, adding wind turbines in an advanced state of assembly. And another fourteen wind farm parks representing another 533 megawatts will be under construction in a few weeks, as detailed by the Ministry of Industry with the information provided by the companies themselves to the provincial energy services.
This investment boost exceeds 2,000 million euros and is concentrated in half a dozen companies that bet on Aragón as a result of the facilities set by the DGA to process projects, both wind farms and photovoltaic plants.
His decision to prioritize these actions, with his declaration of regional interest to reduce by half the administrative procedures, put the Community “at the head” and allowed to concentrate here the projects of the state renewable energy auctions. “The rest of autonomies have copied Aragón, since the Government of Lamban believed before anyone else and was the first to provide facilities,” stresses the president of the Aragon Energy cluster, Pedro Machín.
The fifty or so wind farms under construction represent the outpost, given that the projects being processed by the Autonomous Administration amount to just over 3,900 megawatts. Of these, 2,504 are already authorized and the 1,620 cited, in works. If all are implemented, the investment will be close to 4,000 million, according to industry sources.
The province of Zaragoza concentrates the construction of wind turbines, which represent a power of 1,246 MW, almost 77% of the total. Another 324.5 megawatts are being developed in Teruel (20%) and the remaining 50 in Huesca (3%). In this calculation, two finished parks have been included, representing 70 MW.
The biggest boost corresponds to the Aragonese group Forestalia, which obtained rights to execute more than 1,900 megawatts of renewable energy in the three auctions convened by the Ministry of Industry between 2016 and 2017. And its commitment was to concentrate the mills and photovoltaic panels in Aragon.
Outstanding
As other operators have done, Forestalia has detached itself from other mature projects totaling 709 MW, acquired by Repsol and the Danish investment fund CIP, whose works will begin in a few weeks.
Endesa, through Enel Green Power Spain, is another of the companies that bet from the beginning for Aragón. It has under construction ten parks in Teruel and Zaragoza, with an output of 328 MW, to which will be added two more that represent an additional 42 MW. These are part of the 540 obtained by the company in state auctions. The company estimates the investment in Aragon at around 434 million and foresees that they will be in service by the end of 2019.
This will prevent them from losing, like other promoters, millionaire guarantees deposited in the Ministry of Finance. If the mills and plates are not evacuating between the end of the year and the first quarter of 2019, they will lose 30,000 euros per megawatt, as well as the perception of the land for power generation that was guaranteed in the auctions.
Only the endorsement can imply 3% of the investment, but the president of the Aragon Energy cluster stressed that this cost is “affordable” by the companies because of the technology savings that have meant delaying their implementation. And on the loss of the land of the auction, he stressed that it is “compensated” equally with long-term power purchase agreements.
