Charging power lines for the transport of renewable energy from Aragón to Gatika
- As renewable energy generation projects advance, line projects for their electricity transportation also emerge. Some of them cross Navarre, Álava and Bizkaia.
The Aragonese company Forestalia and the Spanish Electricity Network (REE) are the companies that want to build these lines, the first is private and the semi-public. These are in fact long-distance electricity transmission lines, known as electric highways, but the Subai Erakuntza Foundation has denounced that renewable projects are being processed as empty evacuation lines.
Companies still do not have permission to build towers, but the foundation has denounced that “Forestalia is pushing” for the construction of these lines. It says that in recent weeks the owners of the lands are receiving letters sent by the company asking them permission to install towers on their lands: “It seems that the company is trying to close the initial relationships with the owners of the lands, in order to strengthen its position of strength in the elaboration of the project and try to advance the work before the expropriation in the future,” explains the foundation on its website.
In any case, Forestalia wants to build one line in Sakana and REE another, but the Spanish Government’s Ministry of Ecological Transition has already announced that both lines should go on equal towers. Therefore, for the construction of these towers it is not enough for Forestaliak to obtain the authorizations of the land owners, and REE should also request their authorizations.
Lines over 200 kilometres
One of these lines of Forestalia begins in the village of Cinco Villas, in the province of Zaragoza, and ends in Gatika, which would be 270 kilometers. Enter Navarre through Carcastillo and cross the Center, the Pamplona Basin and the Barranca. It is divided into two branches: one ends in Gatika (Bizkaia) and another in Vitoria. The line also has a third branch that starts at the height of Olite and has as evacuation point the Castejón substation. The other line would start in the region of Tauste in Zaragoza and would affect the Ribera de Navarra, La Rioja, Álava and Burgos, which also has more than 200 kilometres in length.
This first line coincides with the line projected by REE between Muruarte (Navarra) and Itsaso (Gipuzkoa). The two lines would run parallel throughout the course of the latter (92 km. ), with a distance of approximately 200 metres between the two. Thus, the environmental and social effects of this type of infrastructure (tree removal, barrier effect, electromagnetic fields…) would double. However, these cumulative effects have not been analyzed in either project.
Despite all the shortcomings in these projects, the Spanish Government has approved four projects submitted by Forestalia. The Subai Erakuntza Foundation, in collaboration with Aragon, La Rioja, the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and other Navarre institutions, has used all the projects approved to date.
The Subai Foundation considers that these macro-projects are harmful to our environment, “and furthermore, if these projects were carried out, a key activity for energy management, electricity transportation, would remain in private hands”.
The following maps show the route of the lines of three projects:
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