Why wind farms anger rural Spain, and the wine producers fighting turbines on their turf

For over four decades, Maria Jose Nestares’ family has quietly run a vineyard in the northern Spanish region of La Rioja, one of Europe’s largest wine-producing areas. But about four years ago, when a major turbine maker started building a wind farm next to her winery, she decided to pick a fight with what she sees as a nasty infringement on the otherwise pristine, bucolic community. “Building plants massively here means we’re taking the brunt of the production of energy that will actually supply Madrid and Barcelona,” says Nestares, a lawyer who owns the namesake winery alongside her sister. “That’s unfair.” The regional government of La Rioja agreed and in 2024 approved a moratorium for all new energy projects until a landscape law is passed. Nestares’ argument embodies a tension between Spain’s rural and urban communities that has been growing over the years. The vast majority of Spain’s land mass – around 70 per cent – is sparsely populated and residents of those regions have felt for decades they have been overlooked by the national government. The areas, known in many parts as La España vacía, or “empty Spain”, have craved more locally beneficial investments, and are eager to have their concerns heard. Blocking renewable installations that boost the economies of faraway cities more than their rural source is just one way to do it. Even if it means putting the country’s climate ambitions at risk. In 2024 Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez’s government announced a national target to generate 81 per cent of all energy from clean sources by 2030. This requires nearly doubling current wind capacity to 62 gigawatts by the end of the decade – something that analysts have said would be difficult to achieve no matter what. “[The goals are] so ambitious that they represent their own main hurdle,” says Javier Pamos, an analyst at Aurora Energy Research.td. Opposition to turbines in the countryside is not helping and new regulations are a constant threat. The region of Galicia, which is about 98 per cent rural, passed a proposal in late 2024 to force new and repowered wind power generators in the northwest territory to sell at least half of the electricity they produce to local companies through power purchase agreements. The proposal was strongly criticised by Spain’s wind lobby AEE and other industry groups for creating possible market distortions and an unfavourable investment climate in the region. In the northeast, the government of the underpopulated region of Aragon in 2024 introduced a new tax on both wind and solar projects deemed to have an adverse impact on landscape. Controversially, the levy applies to not just new projects but ones that were already under construction, according to Heikki Willstedt, director of energy policy at AEE. The presence of a huge turbine next to a vineyard is simply unacceptable Maria Jose Nestares, winemaker in La Rioja, Spain “You cannot give permits, facilitate the construction of wind farms and then, once they’re built, when it’s too late to go somewhere else, impose a levy,” he says. That adds up to “the bad regulatory practices toward investors”. Traditionally, Spain has been seen as a relatively friendly environment for wind development. According to grid operator Red Electrica, Spain currently boasts a capacity of 32 gigawatts of wind power, which makes it second only to Germany in the European Union. Wind, however, has been under pressure everywhere. Developers are facing significant bottlenecks worldwide, ranging from insufficient supplies of equipment to permitting issues and grid access delays. Local opposition to renewable farms is also a common problem. In Spain, getting rural communities to accept visual burdens in their backyard for the sake of national climate goals is proving to be a hard sell. There is a “growing negative feeling stemming from the lack of clarity about how renewable plants are actually beneficial for the area where they’re built”, says Oscar Barrero, head of energy at PwC’s Spanish unit. In a government energy hearing on February 6, Spain’s minister for ecological transition Sara Aagesen said that, for future tenders to access power network nodes, developers will have to show the local benefits of their renewable projects. The projects must be the best from the standpoint of “solvency” as well as “territorial benefit” and “job creation”, she said. For rural residents like Nestares, there are better solutions out there than large-scale wind. “We champion renewable energy, but the power model should foster nearby solar, with regions generating locally according to their needs,” she says. In Nestares’ view, there is an intangible ingredient at risk in the Rioja she sells. “The environment where wine is produced is somehow part of the final product,” she says, “and the presence of a huge turbine next to a vineyard is simply unacceptable.”

Why wind farms anger rural Spain, and the wine producers fighting turbines on their turf

Madrid’s push to install wind turbines in rural areas to meet national climate goals riles farmers, who fret over their impact on landscapes