Reports against and social pressure knock down a 21-hectare photovoltaic park in Ariany

ArianyThe Department of Housing, Territory and Mobility of the Balearic Government has closed the door on the construction of the photovoltaic park that planned to deploy nearly 19,000 solar panels over an area of 21 hectares of rustic land in the municipality of Ariany. The General Directorate of Urban Harmonization and Environmental Assessment has issued an unfavorable environmental impact statement for the project called Alten Mallorca IV in the Son Boscà area.

It was the final step after studying a flood of negative technical reports and deficiencies in the processing. All of this, combined with strong opposition from neighbors and environmental groups.

The rejected proposal provided for an installed capacity of 13.34 MW, accompanied by support infrastructure such as transformation centers, control centers, and storage batteries.

One of the most complex points of the design was the evacuation network: an underground 15 kV line of more than 11 kilometers that was to run through the municipal boundaries of Ariany, Maria de la Salut, and Santa Margalida to connect with the Can Picafort electrical substation.

Deficiencies

The negative resolution responds to a multitude of unfavorable technical reports. On one hand, the administration's energy department questioned that the evacuation line was projected on private land and cross-country, instead of taking advantage of public roads as established by the preferential regulations. In parallel, Red Eléctrica opposed the layout for not meeting the required safety margins regarding the high-voltage lines already existing in the area.

Likewise, the impact on historical heritage has been another decisive factor. Historical Heritage alerted to the direct threat that the park posed to cataloged archaeological remains such as the Talaiot d'en Manera or the Son Boscà site. Furthermore, environmental reports refuted that the land was a degraded area, highlighting its active agricultural functionality and its proximity to protected natural habitats of community interest.

Social and environmental pressure

The project had sparked strong social opposition during the public exhibition process. Groups such as the platform 'Renewables Yes But Not Like This' mobilized to demand its dismissal, arguing that the addition of this installation to the adjacent Alten Mallorca III park multiplied the visual impact and the irrecoverable loss of agricultural land at the Son Boscà estate.

Although organizations such as Climate Change, Species Protection, Emergencies, or the water network came to propose conditioning measures to try to make the installation viable, the severity of the heritage impacts, the flaws in the electrical layout, and the high value of the rustic land have ended up tipping the balance towards the Government's definitive rejection.

This is the second photovoltaic plant that the Government has rejected this month in the Pla de Mallorca, since it also issued an unfavorable environmental impact statement for the PFV Sencelles Hive photovoltaic plant project. This was also supposed to occupy 21 hectares.