The Ayora y la Valle Naturalist Association (ANAV), part of the Valencian Coordinator for the Rational Place of Renewable Energy, is organizing a caravan of private vehicles that will tour the region from north to south on May 20, with the aim of making the population aware It is believed that the installation of large photovoltaic plants will cause much more harm than benefit to its residents.
Since 2020, environmental groups have been developing a series of actions aimed at preventing various business groups from building 25 photovoltaic plants in five of the seven municipalities of the region (all except Cortes de Pallas and Teresa de Corfrentes). , which will cover a total of 6,400 hectares of effective surface and whose permits have been requested from the Administration. ANAV is aware that if they receive firm support from the public, both the Generalitat Valenciana and the Central Government will try their clothes thoroughly before granting authorization. Popular pressure will have a similar effect on the promoters of the projects, who are very conscious of their corporate image as to how the income statements could be affected.
The government delegation has been informed of the possibility of about thirty vehicles and a hundred people on board. Broadly speaking, the caravan, which will run along the N-330, the road that passes through the region, will start its journey in Cofrentes. Vehicles will be identified with stickers and tuned if desired. At city squares, a protest speech will be broadcast over the public address system and ANAV volunteers will distribute leaflets and answer possible questions from passers-by. Afterwards, the caravan would go to the towns of Jalens, Jarafuel, Teresa de Cofrentes and Zarra, where the same actions would be repeated, until it ended in Ayora; Here the itinerary will pass through various streets to end with a speech in the Parque de los Morales.
Valencian Sinkhole
The environmental group regrets that the Ayora-Corfrentes Valley has no other idea in the eyes of the administration than to be a “sacrifice zone” for common prosperity, a “sinkhole in which the large infrastructures that provide energy to the coast cities, but no also do not want in their house because they make it ugly”. The nuclear power plant, seven wind farms—215 mills—and the Cortés-La Muela hydroelectric complex, consisting of a dam, a reservoir and three generation plants, combined to produce more than 10,500 GWh at the end of the year, a total of 60% of the autonomous energy consumed by the community.
All this is located in the region, but it is still not enough: now they want to add photovoltaic plants, which will generate 1,152 megawatts of electricity and require the construction of 165 kilometers of new power lines. What is not taken into account is the impact they have on the land – they intend to settle on the plains, the most fertile and most suitable land for agricultural activity – on the fauna – making their sustainability impractical – and the landscape But, what remains is irreversibly changed, which drives away tourist activity. Thus it is a money whose cost remains in the rural area while the benefit vanishes towards the urban area.
An activist addressing people standing on a bench at a plaza in Ayora.
“One Lie After Another”
“It is not true that the installation of photovoltaic parks serves to change the energy model. It is not true that they are using renewable energy to fight climate change,” said Carmela, a member of ANAV and regional coordinator of the campaign Cerda insists. “If this were really the case, energy production areas would not be located here, but where it is consumed, reducing damage to nature and saving transportation. In addition, renewable energy can serve to replace traditional energy sources. Will do, but not to add them, what is happening”.
Another “fallacy” that ecologists seek to expose is the creation of jobs that will compensate for population decline. It is clear that the mills have done this only on a very small scale, but “even considering the nuclear power plant, which is supposed to be the labor support of the sector, how is it that despite the 300,000 million KWh they say their The pass has produced since its inception, which represents a huge amount of work and money, all towns in the region have been depopulated over the years?an activity considered beneficial when people are away from home Life doesn’t have to come out, does it?”
For activists, the job creation generated by nuclear power over 38 years of activity has superseded traditional activities in the area, which with adequate and sustained policies could have strengthened a local economic and social fabric during this time. Ground, cleaner and more beneficial than central in the long run. “What will happen if the nuclear company is closed? We have already lost consciousness, the skills we had before they came. What is happening in Asturias or León will happen after the mining stops: they are wastelands, people now Don’t know how to live in them”.
Achievements and Expectations
The Valencian Coordinator for the Rational Place of Renewable Energy, of which ANAV is a member, brings together another 56 groups. Since 2020, when the Generalitat’s famous Decree 14/20 outlawed the installation of wind and solar farms on undeveloped land, the environmental fight has made some successes that may reduce the avalanche of environmental strikes to come. Have been First, a change in the attitude of Compromise, one of the parties forming the tripartite government in the Community and which changed its initial strategy of support for the decree designed by the PSOE and councilor Miria Moya. Environmental pressure (and the fear that the third member of the tripartite, Unidas Podemos, always aligned with green principles, might take away votes) forced Compromi to replace Moya with Isaura Navarro, in response to environmental requirements. With so many demands that must be met. Carry out energy projects submitted by companies.
With the new councillor, the Generalitat has reconsidered hundreds of allegations submitted by individuals, groups and town halls and so far it has definitively rejected 19 photovoltaic projects affecting 11 municipalities. The environmental campaign is also useful at the local level: to date the DOGV has published full agreements adopted by 21 city councils that request the suspension of licenses for this type of activity. Obviously, the total number of projects still being processed is much higher, but the data shows that when citizens decide to act on matters that concern them.
Plan specific
ANAV faces additional difficulties in the sector, because in addition to the projects covered by Decree Law 14/20 – it has presented charges against 22 of them – Ayora (PP), Zarafuel (PP) and Zara (PSOE). ) against the municipalities of came together to adopt a “Special Plan for the Management of Photovoltaic Energy Generation Infrastructure” in 2019, by which they declared certain areas in their municipal areas as suitable for the establishment of macro plants. A total of 5,769 hectares of Cañada de Jarafuel and La Vega, fertile plains for the cultivation of cereals and almond trees, will suspiciously remain within reach of an Italian promoter, Genia da Vinci SL, which appears in the first draft of the proposal. The entity developing the project, the project and that once the plan is approved, it will opt to promote several power plants in the area.
ANAV quickly made a charge against it, both detected for alleged irregularities (it is not the city councils that prepare the plans, but a private company – which is going to be chosen to receive said land – that prepares them- built), as well as the deficiencies found in the public participation process, as well as the aggressive environmental impacts it would cause in the area. It goes without saying that all their claims were rejected and the plan which was in action is currently about to be approved. ANAV is studying the possibility of appealing it once legally.
Environmental groups are also preparing to present themselves in controversial-administrative proceedings against a project called Valle Solar, which is owned by the aforementioned Italian firm and affects more than 537 hectares in Zarafuel.
Finally, he has also been involved in the formation of an energy community in Ayora, which aims to be two-fold: to achieve energy self-sufficiency for its members through the rational use of clean energy (yes), and incidentally to demonstrate that In fact, it is false that producing electricity through large wind and solar plants instigated by large companies seeks to mitigate climate change, nor to correct energy models, nor to favor local populations. for, but also to obtain a spectacular economic gain (a real hit) at the cost of ravaging the interior area and towns. And so, no.
