Wind giants reaching 220 meters high are approaching the center of Asturias

There are 24 wind farms in Asturias, all serving 531 wind turbines in the West and Southwest of the region, where a better wind resource is available and industry guidelines are less restrictive. The acceleration of the energy transition, marked by the closure of the Lada and Soto de la Barca coal-fired power plants in Asturias, has triggered the number of renewable projects and the Principality currently operates between 301 and 52 wind farms. towers. The latest projects include state-of-the-art wind turbines up to nine times more powerful than the firsts installed in Asturias, and with a much larger blade span as a result, with heights in excess of 200 metres. Until now, the construction of these giants was considered in councils far from the center of Asturias, but the increase in projects in the West – which already occupies the best places – delays and constraints in the development of offshore wind power. Large areas from the southwest, which the principality will in some cases consider in the next revision of regional guidelines for the management of wind farms, are pushing new projects towards the center of Asturias.

eight mills

At the edge of the so-called high-wind capacity area, Madrid-based company AMR 2 Energías Renovables, promoted by Madrid-based Grupo Corporativo Arrate and Aragon renewable energy company Maetel, is a park called IEP-Pravia, consisting of eight generators of six megawatts each, the following The maximum value available for onshore wind on the market at the moment. The towers of the mills will be 135 meters high and the diameter of the rotors will be 170 meters. From the base of the towers to the end of the blades, each wind turbine will be 220 meters high, which is three times higher than the tower of the Oviedo cathedral.

The wind farm will be located between 500 and 700 meters above sea level, in the Pumar and Villarín mountains. Specifically, the wind turbines will be installed between the Andolinas peak and the Candanéu peak. The eight windmills will be connected by an underground line, and the energy will be discharged via a double-circuit, over 6.5 kilometers long high-voltage overhead line, which will be fed from a new substation to the existing electrical substation, called pravia

The IEP-Pravia wind farm has passed the competitive selection process and the Principality has published its first environmental impact assessment document for public information. So far in 2022, six wind farms have passed competitive selection and started the process. In addition to IEP-Pravia there are also those of La Artosa, Sierra de Busto, La Cogocha, Mouxada and Rebustiello.

Access to networks

Most of the wind farm projects underway in Asturias also have the necessary permits to access the electricity transmission networks. According to data from Red Eléctrica de España, which shut down on June 30, 2022, there are more than 1,000 megawatts of wind power in Asturias with access to the network, adding to about 700 megawatts in service. There is also another 400 megawatts under management.

The regional government reiterated at the General Assembly that renewable energies should be developed in order to meet the 2,200 megawatt gap created by the closure of coal plants, with different views; wind energy projects have to go through a “guarantee” environmental procedure and this experience shows that only some of the projects are realized. Different neighborhood groups and environmentalists denounced that environmental studies did not take into account the cumulative impact of wind farms concentrated in the West.