SPAIN’S organic and green energy sectors provide a regular supply of good news stories. The country has taken over from Italy as Europe’s largest organic producer mostly thanks to Andalucia, which is now dedicating 784,000 hectares of land to organic farming.
Although most of the produce is exported to northern Europe, the number of outlets here is increasing and many of the larger supermarkets now have an organic section.
Organic farmer Francis Cobo is doing well. “My aim is to sell my seasonal produce as locally as posible, which means it works out cheaper.”
The Junta de Andalucia works hard to promote organic farming and has recently engaged the ethical bank Triodos to provide affordable and accessible credit to those farmers prepared to “go green”.
Triodos bank, founded in Holland in the 1980s, and in Spain since 2004, has backed various businesses such as re-forestation company Maderas Nobles which aims to plant one million new trees.
In fact, several Andalucia-based firms have teamed up with this innovative company to put part of their profits into tree-planting schemes that not only offset carbon emissions, but also hold water in the subsoil. This also helps to cut down on erosion, which is an enormous problem in southern Spain.
Founder Juan Valero is a real pioneer. He set up in 2000 to single handedly re-forest and re educate Spaniards about these issues. They now have clients such as Volkswagon supporting the project.
Other companies, including Bebés Ecológicos, which provide green products for babies, also has its own sustainable forest in Albacete.
Valero has become a real lynchpin in the efforts to re-forest parts of Spain, by helping to set up a scheme known as Responsarbolidad.
“We are one of the few companies offering a way to invest in a sustainable future. Planting trees will be the equivalent of producing steel between the wars – the motor and heart of a new kind of economy.”
On another front Spain is also a pioneer in the development and use of alternative energies, with Andalucia again at the fore.
It was recently reported that over 30 per cent of energy in Andalucia comes from sustainable sources, with wind the primary generator.
On April 18 last year the wind farms in Cadiz alone produced 10,879 MW, (or 32 per cent of Spain’s electricity requirement) and on November 24 produced 43 per cent of demand.
While it is a contentious issue, the region is going full speed ahead to bring in thousands of new wind schemes, with the government target of 20,000 MW by 2010.
At the same time solar energy plants are opening all over the region.
Europe’s first parabolic trough solar system, Andasol 1, can be found in Guadix in Almeria. Using curved parabolic reflectors to focus the sun’s energy 30-60 times its normal intensity into a receiver pipe, this energy then heats a thermal fluid in the pipe to generate steam to
power a turbine to drive an electric generator. With new additions this year and
in 2011, it will be the biggest in the world.
One of the most exciting developments is at Fuentes de Andalucia, near Sevilla, where the Abengoa plant has the world’s largest solar tower and provides energy for 10,000 homes.
The alternative energy sector is now a booming market despite the current economic climate, with Spain leading the way in new developments in wind, biomass, and solar energy.
A good news story indeed.
