The energy crisis that has hit Spain in recent months, translated into an incessant increase in the price of electricity, can also be understood as a territorial crisis. Of internal inequalities.
A good way to understand it is by going to this report published in 2019 by Red Eléctrica Española (REE). In it we can observe the overwhelming existing imbalance between who generates and who consumes electricity in our country. Or put another way: how two gigantic cities are highly demanding while the rest of the surrounding territories are dedicated to exporting energy. Taken to figures: Madrid produces 4.8% of the energy it needs, while Extremadura raises that percentage to 423.1%.
The best way to see it is on a map and a graph (this one is old, from 2008, but also official from the REE). Through them, the difference in volume between production and distribution is more clearly perceived. We must also bear in mind that these graphs could mislead us and make us think that it is a self-sufficient circuit, but it is not like that: Spain imports around 70% of the energy it consumes. We have one of the highest energy dependencies in Europe, where the average import is around 50%.
The entire European continent is undergoing a transition from a model more dependent on fossil fuels to one that opts for renewable energies. In Spain, in particular, we are betting big on wind and photovoltaic. There are wind and photovoltaic mega-park projects all over the call Spain emptied, and hence there begin to be neighborhood protests everywhere. “Renewables yes, but not like this” is the motto of organizations such as the Salvemos los Campos Association, the Energy Alliance or the Aliente Territory (a group of 152 organizations) are just some of them. Galicia and Cantabria are also pissed off.
The construction of these energy parks is viewed with suspicion in inland Spain for various reasons. His critics point to the destruction of ecosystems, greater survival difficulty for threatened species, a more acute inclination to natural disasters and a deterioration of the landscape. Entire towns and urbanizations, it is argued, would come to live surrounded by steel mills or noisy transformation plants, something that would reduce their quality of life.
In the background, the intense proliferation of parks turns small wind or photovoltaic farms into a large mega-park. This interesting report from El Mundo illustrates how the process works and why it generates some resistance among the local population: for projects of less than 50 MW, companies must agree with the Autonomous Communities and the parks that exceed this power pass through the filter of the Ministry . Solution: chop the projects.
Although there are already municipalities that are organizing to overturn building plans in specific campaigns, it remains to be seen to what extent this debate will become paramount in the autonomous political agendas. There are already media that speak of a regionalist turn for the next congressional elections, with group movements that feel abandoned and demand basic matters such as better trains, closer hospitals or more remuneration for their energy production in front of the prosperous mega-cities.
This whole process can be summed up in “the notary ruleSomething that, in part, we have faced during the pandemic, when we realized what were “essential” jobs (a delivery man, a supermarket cashier) and who were not (a publicist, a consultant). Antonio Valero invented this simile: although in the construction of a house the greatest work comes from the work, in the end “the energy consumption that the notary makes to sign the deed is the one that costs the most money.” That “we value more the products of the ingenuity that what nature gives us, that does not demand its payment “.
It also serves to understand a possible monetary falsehood in the world in which we live: while the essential activities for life are in the primary productive system, these jobs are the least worthwhile compared to the services sector or financial products. Countries that produce energy are poorer than those that produce information.