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Wind Power News: Spain
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch in its noncommercial educational mission to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch. They are the products of and owned by the organizations or individuals noted and are shared here according to “fair use” and “fair dealing” provisions of copyright law. The original articles, links to which are provided, may have additional links and photos and other media that were not included here.
Tilting at windmills: Spain strains to meet record renewables goal
Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa is booking 14 colossal specialized cranes, has hired new staff and boosted capacity by up to 80 percent at its Spanish factories as developers strain to meet a 2020 deadline for cutting carbon emissions. More wind farms are set to be built across Spain in 2019 than in any previous year, the APPA association of renewable energy companies calculates, surpassing a pre-recession boom in 2008 and putting unprecedented pressure on the supply chain. “It is . . . Complete story »
Muerte de cuatro alimoches alerta peligrosidad parques eólicos del Estrecho
[Death of four Egyptian vultures: danger of wind energy facilities in Strait of Gibraltar] La muerte de cuatro alimoches tras chocar contra aerogeneradores registradas en las últimas semanas ha reiterado las alertas sobre la peligrosidad para la avifauna de los parques eólicos que se concentran en la costa española del Estrecho de Gibraltar. Los grupos ecologistas Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción y Colectivo Cigüeña Negra han denunciado esta semana que entre estos cuatro alimoches muertos destacan la hembra y el pollo . . . Complete story »
Iberdrola demanded change at Siemens Gamesa as problems mounted
Spanish utility Iberdrola used its influence to change the management of Siemens Gamesa on Friday after the wind-power joint venture suffered two profit warnings in less than three months. Germany’s Siemens has a controlling stake of 59 per cent in Spanish-based Siemens Gamesa but Iberdrola, with an 8 percent stake, has a say in some governance matters thanks to a deal signed when Siemens Wind agreed to merge with Gamesa last year. Iberdrola demanded change at a board meeting on . . . Complete story »
Spain faces ‘urgent’ end-of-life challenge as 23GW fleet ages
Spain needs to take “urgent steps” – including the introduction of incentives – to extend the life of its 23GW of onshore wind farms as almost half the country’s capacity will be 15 or more years old by 2020, according to the head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE). Juan Virgilio Marquez, the AEE’s chief executive, told Recharge “it’s very important for us to make short-term decisions as we are now facing the last steps in the lifetime of . . . Complete story »
Spanish Supreme Court backs green energy cuts
The Supreme Court of Spain has backed the government’s measures that resulted in cuts worth €1.7 billion (£1.3bn) in the renewable energy industry in 2014. It found they don’t violate the Spanish Constitution and EU legislation. The court received hundreds of appeals from green energy companies two years ago following the announcement however it made the decision after reviewing three lawsuits. It also said the firms won’t have to pay back the subsidies that were granted before 2014. Earlier this . . . Complete story »
Spain installed no wind power for first time since 80s in 2015
Spain didn’t install a single megawatt of wind power capacity in 2015, the first time the industry has had a dead year since the 1980s. Total installed capacity stalled at 22,988 megawatts, with wind covering 19 percent of power demand in Spain last year, the Spanish Wind Energy Association, known by its Spanish initials AEE, said Tuesday in a statement. Just 27 megawatts of new capacity has been installed since 2013, when a new payments system was introduced. Spanish renewable . . . Complete story »
House hit by debris following blade failure
SPAIN: A house has been hit by pieces of a turbine blade that fell from a 300kW turbine in Spain following high winds, several local press are reporting. Two 15-metre blades from the turbine disintegrated in the early morning of 3 January, striking an occupied house 280-metres away. The blade failure occurred on one of 61 Desa A300 turbines at the 18.3MW Corme wind plant in the Ponteceso district of Spain’s northernmost province of Coruna. The project is owned and . . . Complete story »
Un molino eólico pierde dos palas que salieron despedidas contra una casa
Una explosión en el motor podría ser la causa de que un aerogenerador situado en un monte próximo a Corme, en el municipio coruñés de Ponteceso, perdiese dos de sus palas, que salieron despedidas. Partes de las estructuras se precipitaron sobre una vivienda, situada a más de 200 metros del aerogenerador, en la aldea de O Roncudo. Un enorme trozo impactó contra la fachada de piedra de la vivienda, en la que dormían cuatro personas. Los hechos ocurrieron en la . . . Complete story »
Teenager predicted the collapse of Spain’s green energy giant Abengoa
A 17-year-old school student detected the renewable energy giant’s massive financial problems during an economics project he wrote over a year ago, it has emerged. Spanish energy giant Abengoa is currently trying to avoid chalking up Spain’s biggest ever bankruptcy, but it has emerged the company’s downfall was predicted over 12 months ago by a teenage economics student in Barcelona. Pepe Baltá, a 17-year-old secondary school student, discovered Abengoa had some serious accounting discrepancies and predicted it would end in . . . Complete story »
Iberdrola fraud and corruption cases emerge
The proposed, $3 billion takeover of United Illuminating and Connecticut Natural Gas Co. by Iberdrola SA was already stacked with concerns when another hot issue brought some high drama to a regulatory hearing this month. Iberdrola has had five recent cases of fraud and corruption around the world, with millions of dollars in fines, tens of millions in proposed fines and a worldwide ban onWorld Bank financing. The cases have been public, if we consider docket transcripts in Spain, Albania . . . Complete story »
