A round table on wind and photovoltaic projects off the coast and in the countryside of Alghero. Participants included Francesco Pinna (board member of the Cantina Santa Maria la Palma), Pasquale Manca (owner of the San Giuliano oil mill), Giovanni Delrio (representative of fishermen), Raimondo Cacciotto (mayor of Alghero), Mariano Mariani (director of the Porto Conte park) and Stefano Lubrano (hotelier).
Three wind projects with 355-meter-high blades off the coast of Alghero, dozens of wind and photovoltaic parks that threaten Nurra: if they were built, what would be the effects on fishing, agriculture, tourism and landscape?
Stefano Lubrano (hotelier): «The world is moving towards the production of energy from renewable sources with already evident benefits: in my hotel I have experimented with photovoltaics. However, when this innovation has a violent impact on the territory and on the people who live there, it is necessary to intervene. This is the case of Alghero: here they want to install towers as high as the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai on 950 square kilometers of sea, creating problems for fishing, the landscape, tourism, sites that for the people of Alghero have a historical and cultural value such as the Ciù Peppì basin that would be distorted by the cables for the transport of energy. These initiatives should be blocked».
Mariano Mariani (Porto Conte Park): «The European plan for the management of maritime space requires that wind turbines are not visible or in any way hinder the protection of marine habitats: the environmental aspects alone would be enough to counter projects imposed from above, such as those crowding the sea of Alghero. They are part of a development model that responds to interests totally unrelated to the communities forced to host them. The other idea of growth, an alternative to the first, is linked to the circular economy, imposes self-consumption logics with the elimination of energy transport costs, becomes a central point of business competitiveness. The Region could finance energy communities in municipalities with over 5,000 inhabitants, careful not to encourage speculative logics».
Raimondo Cacciotto (mayor): «Anyone who wants to admire the sunset over Capo Caccia would be forced to look at these gigantic towers. If even just one of these plants were to reach the end of the authorization process, it would compromise our landscape and the city as we have known it, with disastrous consequences. The Mistral project foresees that the cable ducts land in an important site for the Alghero community, the Ciù Peppì basin , then continue to Valverde. In another – indicated on the maps with the acronym Alg – the cables are incredibly imagined entering the beach of Maria Pia with the excavation of a sand dune. Sardinia North West aims to have the cable ducts arrive at the port dock, and then cross half the city, including the seafront, with excavations and construction sites everywhere. How can we defend ourselves? We need certain criteria, the Region is identifying them. In the meantime, we are involving the community, we have made a request for a public hearing, a procedure almost never used by municipal administrations that forces companies to have a public discussion. There are other aspects that we are unaware of. Let me give you an example: what impact will it have on birdlife? The energy transition is an obligatory path, it is equally certain that it must be fair and respectful of the territories. We must ask ourselves if it is right to compromise the natural beauty that we have enjoyed while future generations would only be left with the memory».
Giovanni Delrio (fisherman): «It is a huge financial speculation that will be devastating for the city. They want to place over a hundred towers that will be visible from Capo San Marco to Punta dell'Argentiera, some 12 miles from the coast despite the work pushing my colleagues and me up to 20 miles. The optical effect will be three gigantic "islands" anchored to the seabed by hundreds of kilometers of chains - each tower has three anchors - that over time will drive away the fish and trap the garbage floating in the Mediterranean. In thirty years they will fall to pieces, polluting the sea. It would be the end of fishing and pleasure boating because the web of towers would be so extensive that it would make navigation difficult. It is madness».
Pasquale Manca (oil entrepreneur): «The roads to hell are paved with good intentions, like those of those who promise a green revolution while trampling on our environment, the landscape: if they destroy them, it will be the end for us. I seem to see more than one point of contact with the paternalistic intent of the State in the 1960s, when it accelerated forced industrialization, devastating vast portions of Sardinia. These companies show an arrogance from another era, they avoid confrontation with local communities and cause enormous damage. They tried to expropriate land from my company to put up wind turbines just because it would have cost less than another location. We appealed to the TAR and won, but it cost us money and effort. To rent the areas on which to set up the plants and speculate with energy production, they propose figures that are outside of any economic logic: at that point the price of a piece of land that is worth 10-15 thousand euros per hectare shoots up to 45-50 thousand and agricultural businesses are cut off from the market. Only a handful of landowners earn a little money, it reminds me of the exchanges that the settlers made with the natives and as a Sardinian I feel sorry for that. There is also a technical obstacle regarding agrivoltaics: it greatly limits the possible crops, is that really what we want?
Francesco Pinna (Santa Maria la Palma winery): «We have 750 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels on our roofs, and we will probably cut our bill by 90 percent by the end of 2025. We want to create an energy community with all the members of the winery. It is an example of how the energy transition can be done profitably and with respect for the environment. Speculation, on the other hand, occurs with projects imposed from above that leave nothing for the territory and enrich only those who create the systems».
Have you met with company representatives? Who are they? What did they propose? Hiring? Discounts on bills?
Lubrano: «No contact».
Mariani: «Only now, having reached the hot phase, the Acciona group has asked for a meeting. I would have expected them to come forward before presenting a project that contains enormous errors on the environmental level. It is proof of the need for a regional control room to filter the requests».
Cacciotto: «The Municipality was contacted only after it started the process for the public announcement: they asked us for a meeting that hasn't happened yet. It's the wrong method: somehow they tried to keep going, then if it had gone badly they would have contacted the local community».
Delrio: «For the category of fishermen I have not had meetings with anyone».
Manca: «We have been contacted at several levels. Normally the approach is entrusted to a “middle man” who asks you if you are available to meet the representatives of often semi-unknown companies with a capital of a few thousand euros. It takes time to understand who is behind it. The conditions are always advantageous, prices much higher than the market ones. We have had all kinds of approaches: soft, veiled threatening (“we can start the expropriation procedures”), evasive. We asked what assurances they were willing to give on the state of the land at the end of the contract and the answers were vague».
Pinna: «I am also a freelancer and in this role I have met the “developers”, people who go around companies offering rents and purchases at figures at least double the market prices. In the north-west of Sardinia there are many of these figures, more or less serious, who deal with the majority of projects. In Nurra there are about eighty projects spread over thousands of hectares. The real investor comes out into the open only at the end, if and when the project obtains all the authorizations».
Where would you put the new systems?
Lubrano: «Distinguishing between suitable and unsuitable areas is difficult, given that the Draghi decree establishes that unsuitable areas can become so. In my opinion, we need to use that part of the territory that is already compromised, I am thinking of the petrochemical plant in Porto Torres».
Mariani: «First of all, focus on the 400 thousand hectares already compromised and at the center of reclamation logics».
Cacciotto: «We cannot consume more land, we protect the landscape, so yes to installation on roofs, compromised areas, industrial zones».
Delrio: «Not in the sea, otherwise in front of Alghero we will have an island lit up like Manhattan. I wouldn't want these wind turbines to end up like the gas network: to build it they gutted the city at enormous costs and it is almost unused».
Manca: «They should use the degraded areas, in any case in Alghero there are no suitable areas. The tone must rise because these gentlemen do not want to retreat one millimeter, we must all be very determined».
Pinna: «They use the compromised sites».
In the State-Regions agreement, Sardinia has agreed to produce at least 6.2 additional gigawatts with renewables: can the number be reduced?
Lubrano: «Only if all the regions presented the request together».
Mariani: «According to many reliable studies, the quota assigned today is fine. In fact, in the future it could be revised upwards, perhaps using green hydrogen».
Cacciotto: «We are concerned about the aggression currently underway, but the final objective of 6.2 gigawatts should not frighten us».
Delrio: «We will produce more energy, we will not be able to export it, land and sea will be compromised and we will not have advantages in the bill. Only four landowners who will rent their land to speculators will gain. The people must rebel»
Manca: «The needs of the regions should be brought together to make them weigh on the national government».
Pinna: «The transport network of the North West is not adequate to receive the large load of energy expected by the projects. If the plants were built within two years they would have to remain off».
Catherine Flowers
Paul Paolini
Roberto Ripa