Rueda defends the umpteenth change in the wind law that provides facilities to companies with permits suspended by a judge

The law of fiscal and administrative measures, that is, the law accompanying the budgets of the Xunta de Galicia, introduces one more year dozens of changes in various regulations and, specifically, those that affect the wind sector. In the midst of a constant trickle of parks paralyzed by Justice due to their possible irreversible environmental damage, the Xunta has decided to change a point in its own rules to favor promoters who see their parks stranded in the courts: when a judge permanently suspends prevent prior authorization and construction, the Galician Government will also suspend the deadline – set at three years – that these companies have to request the permit to operate the park, that is, the authorization to put it into operation. Alfonso Rueda, the Galician president, defends these changes that are introduced each year with the community accounts: “Wind power is a very changing sector.”

According to Rueda, adapting to these changes is the intention of the Xunta when it introduces these regulatory modifications in the accompanying law, instead of reviewing the norm itself that regulates the sector. He considers that this does not call into question legal security in the community: “Legal security comes from the fact that these changes are made following the procedure, which is to modify this accompanying law, which always modifies laws within the same period, to end of the year.”

It is not the only novelty that affects wind turbine parks in the accompanying bill for 2025. The Xunta will change the wind fee – a tax that is collected from promoters – so that it depends on the installed power and not on the number of grinders, in a context in which the Galician Government promotes repowering, that is, updating the devices so that each one has more power and their number can be reduced.

In addition, the Galician Government is going to implement the figure of acceleration zones for renewable wind energy. These tools will allow the Xunta to choose areas of the territory in which “the deployment of wind energy is not expected to have a significant environmental impact.” Among the criteria for evaluation is the exclusion of areas included in the Natura Network. Galicia is at the bottom of the State in this figure of protection (12% compared to 27% in Spain).