The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday the maritime spatial planning plans —the so-called POEM— for the Spanish marine demarcations: North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Strait and Alborán, Levantine-Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.
What is intended is to organize the uses and economic activities of the million square kilometers of sea that Spain has.
As explained by the Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, the objective is to order the "current activities and those that can be carried out" at sea.
And one of those that has aroused the most attention is the development of offshore wind energy due to its potential in the fight against climate change, but also due to possible conflicts with other uses.
Of that million square kilometers, 4,948 are reserved as areas of high potential for offshore wind energy.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition thus indicates the areas in which this technology can be developed, still incipient in the case of floating wind turbines, which are the most successful in Spain due to the characteristics of its coast.
Those almost 5,000 square kilometers, which are divided into 18 polygons, represent barely 0.46% of the national waters affected by the new POEMs.
The implementation of this technology was paralyzed pending the approval of the zoning.
After the step taken this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers, its development is now unlocked.
Four projects remained paralyzed by a moratorium issued by the central government pending the POEM.
Three are in the Canary Islands —Mar de Canarias, Proyecto Elisa (in the experimental operation phase), and Gofio Wind Farm— and another in the Basque Country —BIMEP—.
Of the five demarcations whose uses are now ordered, in the South Atlantic (which affects the province of Huelva and part of Cádiz) no favorable area for wind energy has been found.
On the contrary, the area where the largest area has been reserved is in the North Atlantic, with 2,688.61 square kilometers, according to sources from the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
In the demarcation of the Strait and Alborán, 1,222.61 square kilometers have been reserved and in the Canary Islands, 561.87.
Finally, in the Levantine-Balearic route, 474.99 kilometers have been selected.
The ministry explains that a process has been followed to designate these areas — in which the autonomous communities and economic sectors involved, such as fishing, have actively participated — which has taken into account a set of variables.
The first and basic is the availability of wind resources.
Then, attention has been paid to the non-affect to the biodiversity of the potential projects and the compatibility with other priority uses, such as marine and air navigation, and national defense.
Ribera has given as an example the case of cetacean corridors in the Mediterranean, which have greatly limited the uses that are authorized in the demarcations of the Strait and Alborán and the Balearic Islands.
Finally, possible conflicts with other activities, such as fishing, tourism or aquaculture, have also been considered.
conflicts
During the processing of the POEMs, the ministry posted some first zoning maps.
Some companies made public projects to install wind turbines in several of those areas that appeared in those drafts, although the processing of any park was paralyzed.
Immediately, platforms opposed those alleged projects emerged.
But throughout the processing phase, polygons have been eliminated, such as the one that appeared in front of the Cabo de Gata park in Almería, which had sparked strong opposition.
According to the ministry, the zoning process has been carried out hand in hand with the autonomous communities and in the cases in which there has been a frontal rejection of the development of future parks, these requests have been met, explain sources from the Ministry for Transition ecological.
One of the drawbacks of this technology is the visual impact that these wind turbines can have.
The ministry has not set a minimum distance to the coast from the mills.
In each case, a solution has been chosen based on the characteristics of each coast.
For example, in the North Atlantic demarcation (where more surface is reserved), the minimum distance at which the polygons reserved for mills are is 21 kilometers;
In contrast, in the Canary Islands, there is one of the polygons that is located 1,850 meters from the coast of Lanzarote, always according to the information provided by the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
The fact that these almost 5,000 square kilometers are reserved does not mean that wind turbines will be installed on all of that surface.
Now it is up to the companies to assess whether the projects are viable.
In addition, an environmental procedure must be followed.
Once the POEMs are approved, the Government should call wind auctions to establish the conditions of future concessions;
the entire marine surface belongs to the State.
According to the ministry, the areas designated for this technology are now enough to comply with Spain's plans for this decade, which include installing up to three gigawatts of this technology by 2030.
The POEMs approved will now be valid until December 31, 2027 and will serve to test the development of a technology, floating wind power, which is not yet sufficiently mature.
In the case of onshore wind, Spain is one of the world leaders.
But the country has never gotten on board the navy bandwagon mainly because Spanish territorial waters are very deep and this technology requires a fixed foundation, something that is unfeasible from 50 meters deep.
However, floating wind power, which does not have these requirements, is making its way and the Government aspires to become the European benchmark for this technology.
In December 2021, the Government approved the roadmap for the "development of offshore wind and sea energy in Spain".
This strategy, also prepared by the Ministry for Ecological Transition, set the goal that by 2030 the country would have between one and three gigawatts of this renewable.
This would mean that, in the best of scenarios, 40% of all installed power in the EU at the end of this decade would be in Spain, according to the plans of the European institutions.
But for this plan to go ahead, the approval of the POEMs was needed to establish the areas in which this technology could be developed.
Furthermore, this zoning was an obligation that the European Union had established for all its members with coastal areas.
And Spain should have approved it a year ago,
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