34 lithium battery installations threaten the territory

PalmThe Balearic Islands have faced a new threat in recent months that could add a deluge of industrial facilities, iron, and concrete to the already damaged rural landscape. To the haphazard development of villas and the solar farms that have been disfiguring the islands in recent years, another concept has now been added: lithium battery storage facilities that various developers, mainly investment funds and energy sector companies, are pushing across the region. According to data confirmed to ARA Baleares by the Balearic Government, 34 projects are already being processed, 18 of which are specifically planned for rural land, while the rest are planned for industrial or urban areas.

Industrial battery parks, known as BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems), consist of large clusters of containers housing batteries, inverters, and transformers. They store energy, generally generated by renewable sources such as solar or wind power, during off-peak hours and release it when demand increases or generation is insufficient, thus helping to stabilize the grid. These facilities vary considerably in scale, from small storage facilities for communities to large parks with capacities of several megawatts, as is the case with some of the projects planned for the Balearic Islands. The fact that these "clearly industrial" initiatives, according to GOB territorial spokesperson Margalida Ramis, are being built on rural land "is yet another absurdity, another episode in the misguided way they are turning the fertile land of the Islands into a wasteland. We hope the Government will see that this is not what the sustainability project needs, but rather a new model of land speculation, disguised as green initiatives," she laments.

For now, the Balearic Government has authorized two projects, specifically in the Ca na Lloreta industrial park in Alcúdia. The Director General of Energy, Diego Viu, points out that "we always assess whether they meet industrial safety requirements and the necessary electrical parameters. If the documentation is compliant, the public consultation period begins," he states. This process includes "reports to all relevant authorities, such as Water Resources, Heritage, and Emergency Services." Ultimately, the Government wants to make it clear that a lithium battery park cannot be built just anywhere, but only where the appropriate conditions exist.

Landing in Andratx

This business has manifested itself intensely in Andratx, where, according to the platform "Renewables Yes, But Not Like This," twenty projects have appeared simultaneously, grouped into nine blocks with 68 battery containers, 14 inverters, and 34 transformers, located on rural land near the wastewater treatment and desalination plants. The organization, Margalida Rosselló, considers this "disproportionate." "They simply respond to the interests of development groups, investment funds that, as happened with solar panels, want to profit from fertile land, which should be used for landscape and food production," she adds. For this veteran activist and former Minister of the Environment, "once again, reality is ahead of the government, as already happened with the solar parks. Sectoral planning is urgently needed to clearly define how and what can be done and installed in each case, because energy can be generated and stored in already urbanized areas, and that is not what is being proposed."

In Pollença, the 'Jilguero ST1' project envisions 10 MW and 40 MWh on rural land. Other examples include 'Macrina' in Son Morro, Palma, with 20 MW on industrial land; the Marratxí project in the Can Rubiol sector; 'Laurea BESS III Energy' in Santa Maria with a management capacity of 7,300 MWh per year on agricultural rural land; 'Agrupación Hestia 2 y EOS' in Alcúdia with 44,720 kWh on an agricultural plot on the Alcanada road; and 'BESS Son Canals', in Palma, located on Son Falcó street, near the Son Molines substation.

According to the platform "Renewables Yes, But Not Like This," many of these projects arrive without a clear explanation of their operation, without identifying the source of the stored energy, and without demonstrating their contribution to the electrical grid. In several cases, the only technical data provided is the planned connection to a substation, raising suspicions that some projects respond to private interests with a speculative purpose rather than a genuine public service. The affected residents of Pollença, as well as the town council itself, have expressed their concern that these facilities transform rural and agricultural land into industrial infrastructure, impacting the landscape and ecosystems and posing a potential risk of fires or chemical contamination, which generates social tension and calls into question the coherence of the energy transition model.

Two types of projects

Lithium battery projects may or may not be linked to a solar park. In the first case, some critics, such as an installation technician who requests anonymity, state that "they often want to take advantage of the surplus energy generated by a solar park, but my question is why this information wasn't included in the solar park project. If it was supposed to have surplus energy, it's a business risk for the polymers in the parks. Now we'll have to eat the parks. Money," he asserts. "It's like letting a hotel expand by two floors so it doesn't lose business opportunities in the summer when everyone wants to come," he concludes.

In the second case, these are installations that are not linked to any solar park, and in this case, the GOB spokesperson, Margalida Ramis, believes that "we have to see what the objective is. Because if you build an installation and you don't know where the energy will come from or if the grid is ready?" she asks. "Planning is urgently needed, or the territory will end up as a global industrial park," she denounces.

The Director General of Energy responds that "it's true that solar parks choose their locations, and that in principle, the Administration is responsible for authorizing them if there is sufficient energy transmission capacity. And yes, it can happen that in autumn, with lower demand, in areas where the population drops significantly compared to summer, there might be excess capacity. But that's more than just energy demand; it's lost," he states, although he admits that "batteries can help" to compensate for this situation. Regarding the fact that rural land will again be affected by half of these new installation projects, Viu is aware that "rural land is for other uses, although we must also consider that we are talking about a few hundred square meters compared to the total available land," he affirms.

Experts and environmentalists assert that if the location is planned rather than improvised, it "facilitates social acceptance and the system's effectiveness. Conversely, if these projects are carried out on rural or agricultural land, with potential risks to the landscape, biodiversity, and agricultural land use, they generate controversy and public concern." This difference highlights the need for coherent territorial planning and clear criteria for where these infrastructures can be located safely and responsibly.

The platform "Renewables Yes, But Not Like This" insists that a temporary moratorium is necessary for all projects that cannot demonstrate a genuine connection to renewable energy or a technical function for the electrical system, in addition to specific energy and territorial planning that determines where and how these facilities can be located. They also demand transparency in the technical justification and prioritization of self-consumption, hybridization, and energy sovereignty models over speculative investments. "The entire transition process to renewables must be carried out with democratic participation and control, or it will generate a profound impact on the territory, which will become a sacrifice zone for private interests," says Rosselló. In the Balearic Islands, the question is how to balance the need for energy storage with the protection of the landscape, biodiversity, and public safety, and ensure that the energy transition is carried out with the territory and not at its expense. Social acceptance and the involvement of residents and local entities thus become essential to ensure that projects deliver real benefits and not just private profit, and thus avoid repeating the mistakes already denounced in Pollença and Andratx.