Mérida, Apr 14 (EFE).- The total of 228 photovoltaic installations that currently exist in Extremadura occupy some 32,042 hectares, almost double the extension of the Monfragüe National Park, according to the president of Adenex, Jorge Vega, who has defended the necessary planning of renewable energies to minimize their impact on nature and seek a balance.
This will be addressed in the I Iberian Congress on Renewable Energies and the Natura 2000 Network, to be held in Merida from April 20 to 22organized by the environmental association of Extremadura and the Iberian Council for the Defense of Nature (CIDN), with the collaboration of SEO BirdLife, the Nature and Man Foundation, the Spanish Committee of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Emeritense City Council and the Badajoz Provincial Council, other entities.
Jorge Vega has insisted that “an institutional planning and legal framework is necessary that allows an orderly deployment of renewable energies in the Iberian territory, to avoid unnecessary collateral damage, such as the degradation of spaces and the loss of biodiversity, which are also complementary tools for the fight against climate change”.
Iberian Congress
More than thirty Spanish and Portuguese experts in energy, environment, conservation and development will meet at the Mérida congress, where they will analyze the importance of renewable energies to fight climate change and the need for this development not to be done at the expense of protected spaces.
Therefore, the congress will propose solutions to the dilemma of where to install wind farms or photovoltaic plants and advocates taking advantage of urban or industrial roofs, road slopes, unexploited mining areas, landfills, tailings, greenhouses.
“There are many alternatives, areas that have already been studied and proposed by various platforms, associations and groups,” according to Jorge Vega.
Pilot project
In this sense, he recalled the existing pilot project to cover nine kilometers of the Navarra Canal with solar panels, which would, in addition to producing renewable energy for half of the institutional buildings of the Foral Community, prevent water evaporation, and You have asked about the impact that this could have if it were carried out in the Iberian Peninsula with all its irrigation infrastructure.
For her part, Asunción Ruiz, executive director of SEOhas defended that the social motto of the 21st century should be “not one degree more nor one species less”, hence, he said, “the interest of this congress”.
After defending the necessary development of renewable energies, he also stated that “the Natura 2000 Network keeps us socially and economically safe”, with a benefit per hectare that he has quantified at 3,200 euros.
“We need natural spaces for our survival and we need nature to combat the effects of climate change”, stressed the representative of SEO, who has opted for “binding zoning” and land planning for rapid development of renewable energies , which will also give greater legal certainty to promoters.
Purification Canals, of CIDN, h has stated that it is “a shame” to talk about two issues such as renewables and the Natura 2000 Network, which are “complementary” in terms of impact, which, in his opinion, supposes “a starting error” of development of this type of energy, which makes it necessary to address “an Iberian strategy” so as not to “create imbalances that can make us pay a very high price”. EFE
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