The need to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources to supply energy to a population of millions of people is causing situations that are as surprising as they are unfair. The gigantic photovoltaic parks that extend over immense land on the Peninsula (sometimes over 1,000 hectares) They generate not only environmental impacts, but also social ones.
Increasingly proliferate the testimonies of people who have seen their land (often agricultural fields on which they depend for subsistence) expropriated by the Administration to then hand it over to a private developer that will flood them with solar panels for their exclusive economic benefit.
The Spanish media are increasingly full of such testimonies. The owner of an olive farm in Granada recently claimed that a foreign multinational called him to ask if he was interested in renting his land. Answering no, after a few days he saw in the BOE the expropriation of his farm. In another case, this one in Córdoba, a British multinational has managed to take ownership of 77 hectares of land despite the opposition of its owner. And so throughout Spain.
But How is it possible that a private company (normally a large multinational) literally keeps the land of an individual to set up your business there?
The expert and lawyer José Guiote has published an article entitled ‘Forcible expropriation for the benefit of private photovoltaic developers’ where he gives the keys to how this process works.
Everything is based on the current Spanish law, which allows a private company to seize the land it deems necessary for your project, simply asking the Administration to declare the operation of public utility. This is happening frequently in Spain.
Guiote considers it unjustified to maintain the current wording of the law, given its great permissiveness, and asks that the Administration get involved to end the current defenselessness of the citizen.
The figure of the ‘Public Utility’
The key, he points out, lies in the legal figure of ‘Public Utility’: “It is worth questioning whether it is justified to maintain the declaration of public utility of the electricity generation facilities for the purposes of the expropriation of the assets and rights affected, in the current scenario of liberalization, where any individual can carry out this activity, and where it best suits them & rdquor ;, says the lawyer.
In fact, the regulations that allow such a happy rhythm of expropriation “inherits its wording from a pre-constitutional law & rdquor;.
In the end, the Public Utility that is granted “results in the exclusive benefit of a private company & rdquor ;, he affirms.
Spain currently has a hundred large photovoltaic generation facilities, which, in the opinion of the National Association of Photovoltaic Energy Producers (ANPIER), “represents an exaggeration from the point of view of the energy needs of the country. Thus, if the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan established the objective of incorporating 26,134 MW of photovoltaic power in our country between 2021 and 2030, today the requested access power is more than 96,000 MW: almost four times what was programmed by the Government & rdquor ;.
The benefit goes outside of Spain
José Guiote points out in his article that, in addition, all this volume of energy does not even generate profit in Spain, since the profit usually goes abroad: “The existence of management entities dedicated to the projection of the photovoltaic installation, the management of its administrative authorizations and the obtaining of the necessary land to then transfer everything to a foreign investment entity is more and more frequent.”
“With that, the community in whose social interest, allegedly, it was expropriated, will not receive any economic return either of the energy supply whose income and taxes go abroad & rdquor ;, he adds.
The ANPIER businessmen consider that behind all this “There is excessive speculation by large investment funds, which take advantage of the weaknesses of our administrations and the lack of citizen information to implant almost infinite surfaces of photovoltaic panels (…) that will neither leave wealth nor employment in our municipalities”.
Guiote considers that the big mistake of the current legislation is to give so much power to the promoter. “It does not seem admissible that the promoter holds, without further justification or control, a subjective right to expropriate in his favor the farms where he has decided to locate the photovoltaic installation & rdquor ;, he affirms.
Ultimately, the expert considers that “Administrative control must be intensified around the true public utility of the project photovoltaic in each specific case, without falling into illogical automatisms”.
Full legal article at: https://guioteabogados.com/la-expropiacion-forzosa-en-beneficio-de-promotoras-fotovoltaicas-privadas-el-control-sobre-su-utilidad-publica-y-sobre-la-necesidad -of-coercive-occupation-of-the-goods-and-rights-affected-by-the-in/