PECSRL 2008 23rd Session
LANDSCAPES, IDENTITIES AND DEVELOPMENT
Lisbon & Obidos, Portugal
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
María-José Prados
University of Seville -SPAIN
[email protected]
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
Solar power is an opportunity for European Southern countries
to develop more sustainable energy production systems
In fact, the location of large scale solar plants in agricultural
areas has consequences over rural communities, agricultural
abandonment and cultural landscapes
This presentation explores landscapes alteration and
disappearance in a socio-political context of renewal energies
promotion
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
First Scenario: Policies & Plans
“Andalusian economy can survive to the fall down of
construction trough the promotion of renewal
energies, specially solar power”
F. Vallejo –Regional Minister of Science and Innovation
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Policies & Plans
Promotion of renewal energies (RD 661/2007, may 25th)
Main objectives are:
-
Energy security and save
-
Environmental preservation
-
Support to renewal energies enterprises
devoted to research, development & technology
Program ends in 2010
RENEWAL ENERGY PLAN 2011-2020 WILL BE DEVELOP WITHIN
LESS SUPPORT
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Policies & Plans
Andalusia has great opportunities to produce solar energy. Insolation time and
orography are in favour of that. Map shows how sites within more than 3200
hours of annual insolation and valleys cover large areas, specially in the
southwest triangle
Within this panorama, the surface covers
by thermal solar plants (see graphic)
and number of firms have been increasing
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Policies & Plans
SUSTAINABLE POWER ANDALUSIAN PLAN (2007-13) intends

to promote renewal energies considering their environmental effects

to apply for integrated spatial actions within their territorial contexts

to support local energy enterprises

to export a new model of renewal power plants
SUSTAINABILITY, DEVELOPMENT & INNOVATION
Proposals and actions incorporate
-
solar power plans located over agricultural flatlands, where associated
impacts are less
-
do not consider landscape degradation by power plants sprawl
-
environmental effects refers to protected areas close to thermic plants
exclusively
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
Second Scenario: The Guadiamar Green Corridor (GGC)
“The GGC Protected Landscape figure means the
culmination of the restoration works after the ecological
disaster of 1998”
The Guadiamar Green Corridor Strategy (1999)
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
The Guadiamar Green Corridor (GGC)
Spring, 1998. A waste retention wall at a pyrites
mine in the foothills of the Sierra Morena broke,
emptying about five Mm3 of sludge and water,
contaminated with heavy metals into the Agrio
and Guadiamar rivers
The Guadiamar river is
an essential element in
the hydrological
structure of the
Doñana NP
The disaster led to the initiation of Guadiamar
Green Corridor as Protected Landscape for
the promotion of environmental regeneration
Project aims to encourage sustainable
agricultural production close to
the river
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
The Guadiamar Green Corridor (GGC)
Guadiamar river cross the Campiña landscape. The Campiña extends
over valleys and gently slopes of cultivated flatlands. Herbaceous
crops such as sunflowers and cereals are present, together within
traditional olive and vineyard groves
This pattern is draw by the
latifundia and agribussiness
in the Guadiamar valley
Recent developments
show land use changes
in this traditional cultural
landscape because of
the decline of profitability
of traditional crops
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
The Guadiamar Green Corridor (GGC)
The degradation of this landscape
is linked to intensification, a process
present in Mediterranean regions
For that, the Guadiamar Green
Corridor
Protected
Landscape
requires close collaboration of
landowners
However, these agents develop
their strategies putting into action
practices
for
agricultural
intensification
In the last year there are also new
driving forces of land use changes
related to power plants and other
industrial and commercial activities
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
Third Scenario: Solucar Platform
“The Solucar Platform covers a land area of 800 Has., will
create 300 permanent jobs, and the total investment is
1,200 millions Euros”
www.abengoasolar. com
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Solucar Platforms
Solucar is a solar platform under develop
on a latifundia of 800 Has.
The latifundia is an old property of
Abengoa corporation, one of the most
important spanish civil engineering
enterprises born in Andalusia
Cortijo de Casa Quemada
(before 1912) is located
in the Campiña, near to
the Guadiamar Protected
Landscape
Cereals and industrial
crops growth in the
surroundings of solar
towers (115 m H) &
heliostats
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Solucar Platforms
Abengoa promotes and constructs
by themselves the Solucar platform
partially supported by public aids
This mega project (300 Mw)
combines different thermal and
photovoltaic
solar
power
technologies
.
Abengoa
Solar
provides
electricity to the grid under the
Special Regime of tariffs which
finalized in 2010
Each Kw of solar power is
supported in relation to plant
capacity and oldness
Each kw occupies 1.5 ha.
A solar plant younger than
twenty five years producing
more than 50 Mw have better
conditions
41.75 to 44.03 c€/kw/h
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Solucar Platforms
Abengoa Solar look for to be an
operational
leadership
in
construction capabilities and
technologies development in solar
power
Abengoa Solar is now undertaken
solar platforms
projects outside,
transferring their
own technology
Financial support is a
important
milestone
Abengoa Solar
very
for
They recently argue the
possibility to reject a project in
the United States of America
because
Congress
don´t
approved new Investment Tax
Credits yet
(Solana platform, California
-200 Mws)
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
How solar energy transforms cultural
landscapes
Fourth Scenario: Land Use Change and Landscape
“Land use changes acceptance became polarised around
the perpetual dilemma of development versus conservation”
M. J. Prados (2002)
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Land Use Change and Landscape
Campiña is a cultural landscape based on traditional agriculture
Together with economic profitability and a rural way of life, the
Campiña preserves natural ecosystems and wildlife
Land use changes have consequences on cultural landscapes and
biodiversity supported by them
There are not protected figures in Spain, concerns to agricultural
landscapes. In fact, the Protected Landscape of Guadiamar cross the
Campiña without any considerations about farms and natural life which
is supported by it
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Land Use Change and Landscape
The Campiña landscape is affected by power plants projects
o
Energy produced by renewal power plants in the flatlands will be
distributed by the grid through areas with high power demands,
outside rural areas
o
There are not benefits for agriculture as an activity associated to
the presence of cultural landscapes
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Land Use Change and Landscape
To conclude, plans on renewal energies emphasize agricultural
flatlands for the development of new plants. Insolation time and gently
slopes are natural resources put in value for renewal energies
Although these power systems are intended to fight against global
warming and climate change, both solar and wind plants growth over
land without any vegetation coverage and destroying agricultural land
uses
SOLAR LATIFUNDIA IN ANDALUSIA:
Land Use Change and Landscape
Renewal energies are not free of
charge.
They
resources,
degrade
as
consume
water
natural
and
agricultural land;
soil;
force
land uses changes; interfere into
the wildlife; and into rural villages
way of life
All these negative effects have to be properly quantified & evaluated
We have now a spanish boom of solar power enterprises
Largest holdings are interested into renewal energies profits and,
to fight global climate change
Spatial plans incorporates renewal power developments, but they
have to consider their environmental effects in the right dimension
Less support for a new Renewal Energy Plan 2011-2020 will be central
to control solar power sprawl
But power enterprises push to politicians for to continue supporting
renewal power. And they use the mass media to convince people about
benefits of green energies
Ecosystems, territories and landscapes are parts of and old legacy
and must be protected as an all
Thanks for your attention