Aragon has long been the reference region in Renewable energy Spanish. The energy produced by the air and sun in society does not stop growing, and the issue has already crossed the boundaries of politics and the environment. with Clear intention not to become an “energy colony”As many political parties and environmental associations denounce, the community occupies second place, after Castile and León, in energy production and aspires to the return of this power to the territory.
In an Aragon landscape dotted with massive windmills and vast expanses of solar panels, the numbers reflect the scale of the community’s renewable industry. Today Aragon has 2,916 turbines spread throughout its territory. The windmills in Aragon are distributed among 199 different wind farms The installed capacity is 4,868,355 megawatts.
The path to becoming a national reference in this sector took a big leap between 2019 and 2021. In those three consecutive years, The companies installed 40, 26 and 14 wind farms on community lands, respectively, contributing more than 1,317 MW. To the total amount of society. For comparison, before the aforementioned 2019, the year 2002 alone recorded more than a dozen parks installed.
But the data processed by the regional executive does not only talk about the number of mills or energy production, but also indicates an unequal distribution of facilities. Although almost all of the Aragon landscape already contains a windmill in its potential form, it is the province of Zaragoza that concentrates the majority of facilities: as many as 164 wind farms operate today bordering the central province. There are currently only twelve in HuescaWhile in Teruel, one of the provinces most opposed to the massive deployment of renewable energies in depopulated areas of the country, it has 23 wind farms within its borders.
Specifically, Zaragoza has six parks with the highest amount of power, 50 MW. Three in Aguillón (San Cristóbal de Aguillón and San Bartolomé I and II), two in Rueda de Jalón (El Tolo and Valdejalon) and one in Fuendijalón (Picador) correspond to Aragon’s wind energy elite.
Behind each of these facilities, there is always a different company responsible for managing that park. It will be these companies that will receive the receipts for the renewable energy tax that the Aragon government will implement this spring. Scratch the healthy business of major energy operators, who generate significant returns by installing green energy. A wind farm pays off its investment, on average, seven or eight years after it starts operating.
Wind energy is currently witnessing a moment of renewal for windmills, as it is betting on turbines with a larger blade height and diameter, with the aim of reducing the number of wind turbines to achieve the same power. There is, in theory, an environmental benefit apart from the reduced visual impact: Because there are fewer mills, animals will encounter fewer obstacles in their path.
Photovoltaic cells
In the face of the continuing growth of wind energy, since the first windmills in La Muela, photovoltaics has experienced somewhat slower growth. The capacity of solar panels installed in Aragon amounts to 2,219,551 MW, distributed among 1,931 different facilities. In the years with the greatest growth – annual installations have been counted since 2019 – the year 2023 stands out, with 30 new installations, and 2019 itself, the year in which 20 PV parks were installed.
Calculating the hectares occupied by community solar gardens is more complex. The number of photovoltaic modules (solar panels themselves) spread throughout the Aragon region is known in detail. Currently the community It has 3,427,000 units responsible for collecting sunlight. A rough estimate based on the standard measurement of PV panels, which is typically 1.7 square metres: solar panels occupy 5,825,900 square meters throughout Aragon.
However, there are fewer inverters installed next to wind farms. Currently, photovoltaic farms in the community have With approximately 3,330 investorsDevices responsible for converting the energy collected by panels from the sun into electricity.
This spring both wind farms and photovoltaic installations will start paying the tax on renewable energy sources launched by the Aragon government. With its sights set on the 50 million euros it intends to collect annually using this tax, its expectations fell significantly, from 2,500 to 2,040 euros per megawatt. After several meetings with the sector. The mills will be taxed according to their height and the diameter of the blades (from 38 euros per meter in small mills to 20 euros per meter in large mills) and PV farms will do so by hectare: from 1,260 euros per hectare for parks – less than 20 hectares, Up to 2,160 euros per hectare for those exceeding three hundred. High voltage lines must also pay taxes, depending on the energy they transmit. From 300 euros per kilometer for lines with lower power, up to 1.80 euros per kilometer for lines exceeding 400 kW.
(Tags for translation)Aragon
