The Wind Observatory proposes a standard contract for land affected by wind farms to the Galician parliamentary groups

• by OEGA
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The political Popular Party, the Galician Nationalist Bloc and the Socialist Party have been very receptive to the proposals made by the Galician Wind Observatory. During the meetings, we presented a proposed standard contract drawn up over recent months. This proposed standard contract aims to set out some key clauses to ensure the protection of landowners affected by wind farms and facilitate negotiations with the companies promoting the facilities. This initiative could improve the current situation of rural people and landowners affected by wind farms by giving them decision-making capacity and thereby granting them a key role in wind development planning as well as the ability to self-manage the wind resource.

The proposal includes two standard contract formulas. One is the contract constituting surface rights for Common Land Communities, and the other is the lease contract for individual land owners. Although these model contracts/templates do not include specific economic conditions, they are a call for contracts to prevail over expropriations. They include basic clauses on three forms of payment: by occupied surface area, percentage of windfarm revenue, or installed capacity. Also noteworthy is the productivity clause, which revises the agreed fee each year from the second year onward. In addition to updating the fee each year according to variations in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), it also proposes that a revision be carried out upon owner requests to match a given wind farm within the Spanish electrical regulatory framework granting better remunerative conditions.
The Galician Wind Observatory claims that the role of wind energy is an excellent opportunity for the development and survival of the countryside that may improve the quality of life of the people as well as the condition of agriculture and livestock farms. The motivation for this proposal principally rests on the recommendation contained in the “Opinion of the Special Non-Permanent Commission for the study and analysis of reforms in forest policy, prevention and extinction of forest fires and the Forest Plan of Galicia.” This document evaluates accumulated experience from 2006 forward, drawing particular attention to the extraordinary string of fires suffered in Galicia throughout October 2017. It calls for the development of an instrument, such as a standard contract, to guide minimum prices for land occupation and strengthen the bargaining power of communal forest/land owners against wind energy production companies.
The standard contract elaborated by Galician Wind Observatory will soon be made public.