The Canary Islands Government agrees on the execution of two more wind farms in Arico that will add five wind turbines and will produce 11.75 megawatts: Brisas del Mar Wind Farm (4.7 MW) and Abades Wind Farm (7.05 MW), This locality is in whose environment the promoter company, Estudio Leyvi’s, will build them. In both cases, the Executive orders the alteration of the affected planning, for which it will be necessary to adapt the Insular Territory Planning Plan (PIOT) and the subsidiary municipal regulations. As on previous occasions, this authorization does not have the prior consent of the ariquero City Council, as confirmed by the municipal government.
Both projects were declared “of general interest” by resolutions issued on August 31, 2021 by the General Directorate of Energy, validated on December 1 of that year by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning.
The Brisas del Mar Wind Farm will have two wind turbines of 2,350 kilowatts (kW) of power each. With an investment of 6,204,000 euros, it will generate 33 jobs in the construction phase and nine in the maintenance and operation phase.
Parque Eólico Abades will have three wind turbines of 2,350 kW of power each and its construction will require an estimated investment of 9,306,000 euros. In the development of the work it will generate 49 jobs, while in the maintenance and operation phase it will have 14.
In both cases, the Ministry understands that “there are justified reasons of exceptional interest that advise the execution of the projected work.” In the decrees published yesterday in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) it is also specified that these projects “will not be subject to ordinary urban planning license or any other act of municipal or island preventive control”, under section 2 of article 6 bis of Law 11/1997, of December 2, regulating the Canary Electricity Sector.
Abuse of power
The controversy is served. The mayor of Arico, Sebastián Martín, shows his “total rejection” of what he considers “a new outrage, yet another plague by the PSOE on the municipality. Councilor Valbuena continues to break his word of not granting more wind farms in the general interest, everything has been a lie.
The councilor repudiates the plundering that translates into “the use of the ariquero land for the landfill or the wind farms, as obvious examples”, compared to the offense that implies “the rejection of the enormous tourist interest of Arico, expressed with the singular project that contemplates three hotels between La Punta and Abades. Initiative that paralyzed the same Ministry of Ecological Transition ».
In this scenario, the mayor includes these two wind farms and the one contemplated by the Port Authority in the sea, “in front of Las Maretas, La Caleta, Las Arenas and Tajao.” All this leads him to affirm that “the action of the PSOE on Arico can only be described as a resounding abuse of power.”
Martín, who recalls that the General Planning Plan “has been in a drawer in the Valbuena department for years”, regrets that the municipality “is still waiting for a school and a health center on the coast, the report on the rehabilitation of the Valbuena dam The River or a fair compensation for the landfill. The councilor adds: «The only thing that is going fast in Arico is the installation of wind and photovoltaic parks. It’s unpresentable.”
Other breach
Given the latest decisions of the Canarian Government in this matter, the Councilor for the Environment and Ecological Transition, Andrés Martínez, refreshes that “after the meeting between the mayor and the Director General of Energy, supposedly we were going to be taken into account, something that not only has it not complied, but we have learned of these authorizations through the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands. We are not going to allow the Executive to keep the municipality on the sidelines.”
Martínez denounces that “the Land Management Plan has been skipped, again, and they force us to change the subsidiary regulations, completely annihilating municipal autonomy.” He remarks that “Arico is not against renewable energies, but these are not the ways of doing things.” The councilman returns to the newspaper library to assure that Valbuena maintained that he would not authorize any wind or photovoltaic park via decree of general interest. “Since he became a director, five wind farms and one photovoltaic park have been authorized, including these two, both close to Abades.”
The second deputy mayor also announces that the Arico City Council will resort to the corresponding administrative and legal authorities “in defense of the interests of the residents and the municipality.”
The PSOE and the offshore wind farm
The Senate approved a motion in defense of the Canary Islands Ocean Platform (Plocan). The senator, spokesperson for Digital Transformation of the Socialist Parliamentary Group and the PSOE in Arico, Olivia Delgado, highlighted Plocan’s work “in the field of technology and environmental innovation, associated with renewable energies in the marine environment, which have earned it to become an international benchmark as a body promoting the development of marine renewables, compatible and sustainable from an environmental and social point of view. Given the process to install the first offshore wind farm off the coast of Arica and the opposition shown to it by the municipal PSOE, the mayor, Sebastián Martín, points out that “Olivia Delgado turns her back on her municipality.” In his opinion, “it is not possible to argue against the Arico offshore wind farms being in Tenerife and in Madrid supporting their implementation. It is a huge contradiction and a deception that the neighbors do not deserve. He says that she defends Arico, but the reality is that she is defending her position and interests in Madrid».
