Guide for increasing the social and economic value of wind energy in rural communities

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The Galician Wind Observatory (GWO) with the collaboration of the Juana de Vega Foundation and the Isla Couto Foundation presents an update of a document that proved very useful to increase transparency in the sector in the year 2010. Seeking to respond to the changes over the last 10 years and continue favoring transparency, the GWO started working diligently on this Guide a few months ago. The work was performed under the direction of Professor Simón Fernández (head of the GWO) and Professor Montero Muñoz (member of the REDE group and the ECOBAS Strategic Group), both of whom are from the University of Vigo, along with the participation of Professors Copena Rodríguez (University of Oviedo) and Pérez Neira (University of León).
The document aims to be a useful tool for all the agents participating in wind power development. It incorporates a summary of the most relevant aspects of the negotiation processes between wind farm owners and promoter companies that is made available to all interested agents.
Among the novelties of this updated guide is the proposed standard contract for the lease of wind farms, which incorporates some fundamental clauses to guarantee the protection of land owners affected by wind farms. It also includes a proposal for a collaboration agreement model to be signed by local entities or associations of owners and the promoting companies. The intention is to benefit rural communities through these kinds of agreements and make them a more commonplace reality within current wind development processes. Another significant novelty is its incorporation of useful tax information for the treatment of income derived from wind farms.

The GWO defends wind power development as a component of the energy and ecological transition, of which the production and consumption system is in such dire need. Likewise, we believe energy transition processes must integrate a broader set of objectives, far beyond its current aim to simply achieve higher and higher installed renewable power. Focusing political actions in this single area could lead to social failure. This transition requires a multi-objective focus with the participation of multiple actors. In fact, a transition restricted to the same companies and actors that originally contributed to the issues being addressed would represent no real transition at all.
In this Guide, the GWO sets out some proposals it has been defending over recent years. Public ownership as well as that of local entities should advance, as must the shared ownership of wind farms in local communities; the protagonists of decarbonized societies should be energy communities and energy production and consumption cooperatives, among others. Likewise, the increase in installed power connected to centralized networks should lose weight and give way to autonomous or self-consumption systems producing for local territories.

In addition, the democratization of wind power plant installation procedures should advance significantly. This represents a greater consideration of the rights of wind-farm territory residents, rights concerning wind-land access, and those associated to decision-making about the places where the facilities linked to these energies are to be settled. Another feature of this new perspective is the participation of all local actors, even those who are not directly linked to the establishment of infrastructures (broadening the consideration of those affected) in the decision-making process.
All of this requires the Autonomous Administration to urgently modify the regulatory framework regulating its authorization processes. Furthermore, these legislative changes should limit the use of expropriation as a mechanism to access wind farms only to exceptional cases.
The Guide, structured into 9 sections and 3 annexes, is only available in Galician and it may be accessed free of charge on the following link.