The Portugal Renewable Energy Summit ended this Tuesday with three major topics under debate: the status of offshore wind, electrical and environmental licensing and the challenges of the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNEC2030) for companies in the sector. As yesterday, close to 30 speakers were present, and a full room for a meeting that closed with the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho. These are the main conclusions.
Licensing
- It has been considered one of the major obstacles to the development of renewable energy projects, whether wind, solar or hydroelectric, both in terms of environmental licensing and the infrastructure itself.
- According to Manuel Silva, development director at Aquila Clean Energy, “licensing takes between three and five years, plus construction and connection to the grid and takes around seven years, which is not in line with the objectives of the PNEC”.
- In fact, according to Rui Maia, COO of Nadara, the efforts that have been made to improve licensing are still not noticeable. “Portugal was the country where we had the highest licensing rate. This has deteriorated and it is no longer the country where we look at all projects as we did before,” he says, adding that they are now looking at projects in Italy and the UK.
- Still, there are those who are hopeful about the creation of the Mission Structure for the Licensing of Renewable Energy Projects 2030 (EMER 2030), which aims to simplify processes and create a One-Stop Shop for licensing.
- “The message is this: license as little as possible”, says the president of EMER, Hugo Carvalho. And monitor more, adds the general director of the General Directorate of Energy and Geology, Paulo Carmona.
The Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho
Matilde Fieschi
Offshore wind
- Of the procedures that are registered with the PNEC, this is one of the ones that has generated the most buzz. Not only because it will have to involve two competitions – one to grant the concession for the use of maritime space and the other to award the installation of the project itself -; but also because they are floating platforms, it is still a very expensive technology, as the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho mentioned at the end of the conference.
- According to the government official, the map of areas on the high seas where offshore wind farms could be installed will be submitted to the council of ministers this November, an important step towards launching the first tender, which should only happen at the beginning of 2025.
- But then there is another challenge that arises in this PNEC goal of installing 2 GW of offshore wind in Portugal: the networks that connect the offshore turbines to land. But for João Afonso, planning director at REN, “the challenges of offshore are not very different from what is already done today”.
- The problem is that Portugal is not the only one with projects like these and it can be difficult to find suppliers for cables, transformers and even wind structures.
Source: expresso.pt
