In recent months a clandestine race has been underway to develop large-scale renewable energy projects, also in Navarre. We recently warned about the extension of wind forests to the mountainous areas of the north (valleys of Lesaka, Ultzama and Arga to the north of Pamplona, and the south slope of the mountains of Urbasa and Andía in Tierra Estella and in the valley of Etxauri), and now, unfortunately, we have to talk about the gigantic solar polygons.

A bubble is now taking place around the connecting points between renewable energy projects and the electricity grid. At the state level, applications for these connections exceed 430 GW, i.e. 4 times the power installed in the electricity system, as in January 2019 there were 105 GW. It should also be taken into account that at the time of the highest electricity consumption in the State, in 2007, an instantaneous power of 45.5 GW was consumed, which has not been repeated, after the 2008 crisis.

Navarre is not excluded from this hitch competition for power lines. In the last year, the Official Bulletin of Navarre has registered numerous requests for “only interlocutor of the node”. With this figure, the Administration considers a company as a single representative to set priorities on access to each network link. In view of all the appointments of this kind made by the Government of Navarre in the last year, we can appreciate the exaggerated scope of the photovoltaic and wind projects that have been created in Navarre.

We have recently read the opinion article of Juan Manuel Sarasibar Segura. In Navarre, photovoltaic solar plants of more than 3,000 megawatts are being processed. In view of the above in all these requests for "hitch", and given that they cannot be executed by placing them all in the same field and trying to use the same node, we consider that this statement is a bit excessive if it uses the same data as we do. It is clear, however, that the number of applications is very high, so the area they would occupy in the territory is even larger. Promoters of solar polygons report that obtaining a megawatt of solar energy requires a plot of 2 hectares (ha) for plate placement.

This model chosen by companies is today the biggest problem to develop their projects. They are the gigantic solar polygons that occupy large areas of adjacent land, most of which are devoted to land farming.

In Navarre there are such polygons, especially in the Ribera, but they are much smaller (50-80 ha) and are located in marginal areas. However, little by little, the size of the projects is increasing and evolving into areas of higher agricultural productivity. At the beginning of the year we saw some of the projects already approved: Over 100 ha in CASCANTE and 135 ha in Corella.

The worst, however, is yet to come and is now being dealt with. During these days we are talking about the project of the company Solaria, in the south slope of Forgiveness, in the municipalities of Uterga, Muruzabal and Adiós: With a project of 550 hectares and a project of 280 hectares. In general terms, and by way of comparison, we can say that the first project would have the same area as 750 football fields, and the second one would have 380 football fields full of solar panels.

But it is not the only great project we have known in these months and close to Pamplona. Syder and Solarig are also pushing two other projects if we look at the blueprints that have been given to us by the people they have met. Both would be on the northern side of Mount Erreniega. One of them, in the municipal terms of Zizur and Galar, near the municipalities of Zarikiegi, Galar and Sparza de Galar, would have some 450 ha, as we have been able to measure. The other would be located in the Cendea of Beriain and Galar, between the localities of Subiza, Arlegi, Salinas de Galar and Beriain, and with about 475 ha. And finally, although there will surely be many others we don't know, we recently learned that in Olite there is another in the community of Santa Brígida that can reach 150 ha.

Therefore, once again, we have large renewable energy projects, similar in size and impact to the wind forests already denounced.

In fact, like wind turbines, in this case they are installations that take renewable energy from the sun. Therefore, they also suffer seasonality and load factor, as the energy they can capture varies with the time of the year and with the climatology. Therefore, in order to maximise power generation capacity, they should incorporate more PV plates, so they should increase the surface they use. In addition, large quantities of various metals and minerals are needed, some of which are scarce. All of them are extracted from mines in remote countries with significant environmental impacts.

Thus, promoters tend to use large agricultural surfaces to place solar panels. This means the disappearance of many plots of agricultural use, as well as the modification of the environment in which the animal and plant species live, as the areas of these species disappear. There is, therefore, a double loss, that of biodiversity and of the most useful agricultural lands, especially those of the Pamplona Region, which has a high cereal production.

With these solar projects we are, therefore, at the same crossing that proposes the construction of large wind polygons in our mountains. On the one hand, the consumption of fossil fuels, which account for about 80% of Navarre’s current energy consumption, must be drastically reduced. And yet the projects proposed for this are not at the root of the problem. These major projects have major environmental impacts and generate electricity, as electricity is only 20% of the energy currently consumed in Navarre and much of the energy is already produced in a renewable way.

As we have already said in the case of wind polygons, we consider that the energy transition is mainly based on the drastic reduction of energy consumption in developed countries. Only the reduction in consumption will allow humanity to remain within the boundaries of planets. And the basic energy consumption needed must, of course, be of renewable and sustainable energies, for which it will be necessary to resort to small projects for their consumption in a nearby environment and based on the sustainable use of local resources.