"It's not about not installing solar panels or wind turbines, it's about doing it well and with common sense". In recent years, Catalonia has not been able to progress enough in renewable energies and currently the country is very far from the objectives set by both the European Union and the Parliament of Catalonia itself. But how should they be deployed in the territory? Where should solar panels or wind turbines be installed? In an event organized by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) and ARA, a reflection was held this Tuesday on which areas should be explored in order to protect agricultural land as much as possible.

Decarbonizing strategic sectors, promoting self-consumption, and reducing energy dependence on foreign sources. These are three of the major challenges facing Catalonia's energy system, but also three crucial opportunities to completely rethink it. To address these challenges and move towards a cleaner, more efficient, and more sovereign model, there is a key element: the electrification of demand. This was the starting point for the third edition of the ARA-CEEC Conversations, a conference co-organized by the newspaper ARA and the Catalan Energy Efficiency Cluster (CEEC), with the collaboration of Estabanell, which brought together experts, institutions, and companies to analyze how to transform the country's energy consumption in a sustainable way.

The implementation of renewable energies has become established as a fundamental element in the path toward the decarbonization of the energy system. These clean sources not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also provide benefits such as greater energy sovereignty and lower electricity costs for consumers.

Catalan Climate Action minister Teresa Jordà has defended this Tuesday that Catalonia will need to have 1,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind power installed by 2030, for which "we will need an offshore wind farm on the Catalan coast," she admitted. Jordà has endorsed this type of renewable energy, as long as its environmental impact is "assumable", during a trip to Denmark, where she visited the Middelgrunden offshore wind farm, located off the coast of Copenhagen.