The Deputy Secretary of State for Energy, Jean Barroca, said that municipalities will have “full autonomy” to decide where renewable energy acceleration zones can be created within their territories.
The proposed Sector Program for Renewable Energy Acceleration Zones (PSZAER) was open for public consultation until Wednesday, having registered more than 9,000 responses.
In statements to the Lusa agency, Jean Barroca indicated that the Government met on Wednesday with the Board of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) to discuss the PSZAER and clarify how the plan will be operationalized.
“It was a very productive working meeting. Several clarifications were given about the operationalization of the PSZAER which I believe have helped the ANMP to better understand the dynamics we want to give to this type of renewable energy acceleration zones,” the official said.
According to the Deputy Secretary of State for Energy, “one of the clarifications given is that the renewable energy acceleration zones are patches, not specific zones.”
“The next step is now a moment of total autonomy for the municipalities, where from the total patches that each territory has, a maximum of one percent will be selected, in which the municipality will then determine, in the planning of its Municipal Master Plan (PDM), which are the specific territories where there will be renewable energy acceleration zones,” he explained.
Jean Barroca also revealed that it will be “consensus-based” between the ANMP and the Government “which exceptions will be applied to the transposition of the renewable energy acceleration zones, within the scope of each PDM.”
“We are talking, for example, about exempting zones for business reception, because, simply, it does not make sense to use such an area as a renewable energy acceleration zone, because essentially it is soil that will already have another use.”
A third point agreed between the Government and ANMP concerns holding meetings with the municipalities to clarify “all the necessary questions about the specific points of the transposition for each municipality of the PSZAER.”
“It is also important to clarify that these renewable energy acceleration zones will not have an immediate impact. In other words, they will be operationalized through transposition to the PDM over a period that continues to be agreed between us and the ANMP,” he added.
Jean Barroca stressed that the objective is to give municipalities “space for a public discussion about which parts of the territory are more advantageous or not for the renewable energy acceleration zones.”
“It seems to me there has been a great alignment between the Government and the ANMP, because we are all in favor of the energy transition, we all understand the need to accelerate licensing procedures for renewable energy, but we are neither abandoning the autonomy of local power nor imposing ourselves on what is local territorial planning,” he considered.
In his view, “this is primarily a collaborative perspective between the Government, the objectives we have for decarbonization and for meeting the targets of our National Energy and Climate Plan, and what are, obviously, the local priorities of the territory.”
The Deputy Secretary of State for Energy also clarified that the operational rules of the PSZAER will be approved by a resolution of the Council of Ministers.
“It is our intention to also reach a consensus on this Council of Ministers resolution with the ANMP before it is approved so that we have something very important, which is convergence in the purpose of these zones between the central power and the local power.”
The official also guaranteed that renewable energy acceleration zones will not be “an exception to the need for environmental impact assessment, licensing, and planning.”
“Where there is a possibility of creating these zones, timelines are accelerated, but the criteria and the same rigor as before are met. We do not want an energy transition at the expense of the country’s environmental values,” he assured.
The PSZAER promoter entity is the Mission Structure for Licensing Renewable Energy Projects 2030, which aims to “accelerate the energy and climate transition in Portugal, promoting the incorporation of renewable energies into the national electricity grid.”
