The TS endorses the Campelo wind farm, which opens the door to wind power in Galicia

The Xunta de Galicia has welcomed the ruling, stating that the judicial resolution “opens the door to lifting the paralysis of another 64 wind farms” in the region. The regional government defends its commitment to renewables and considers wind energy as a fundamental pillar for the decarbonization of the economy.

Despite the strong support it had already given to the processing of wind farms in Galicia in two judgments of December 2023 and January 2024 regarding the authorizations of the Xunta to repower EDP’s Corme wind farm in the city of Ponteceso, in an unusual decision the Supreme Court agreed to review its own jurisprudence a few months later. In the eye of the hurricane was this time the project to build from scratch a 40.5 megawatt (MW) wind turbine complex of Greenalia in Coristanco and Santa Comba. The Superior Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG) overturned the permits after a complaint from the Association for the Ecological defense of Galicia (ADEGA) and the Platform for the defense of the Cantabrian Mountain Range repeating the same reasons it gave in the cancellation of the approval to the technological renewal of Corme.

The Supreme Court has revoked the decision of the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG) that annulled the authorization of the Campelo wind farm, located between the municipalities of Coristanco and Santa Comba. The Fifth Section of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court, after deliberating on the appeals filed by the developer Greenalia, the Xunta de Galicia and the Galician Wind Energy Association, has confirmed the legality of the administrative agreement that allowed the construction of the park.

The controversy centered on the alleged undue fragmentation of the project, alleged by the TSXG, which had cautiously paralyzed the works in October 2022 and canceled the authorization in June 2023. However, the Supreme Court has established a new jurisprudential doctrine, clarifying that the sharing of connection facilities between wind farms does not necessarily imply the existence of a single project for environmental assessment purposes.

According to the Supreme Court, the TSXG’s decision departed from the jurisprudential doctrine established in previous judgments. The high court has endorsed the individual environmental assessment carried out by the Xunta de Galicia, considering that wind farms are independent even if they share connection infrastructures.