we have guaranteed 650 jobs compared to 532 lost”
The director of the Institute for the Just Transition (ITJ), Laura Martín Murillo, visited Andorra last Thursday to detail before the territorial agents the content of the Just Transition Agreement (CTJ) of Aragon, from which 33 municipalities of Teruel will benefit. The person in charge assures that, even without a signature, the objective of the document has already been fulfilled because with the current instruments 650 long-term jobs are “guaranteed”, compared to the 532 that were destroyed due to the closure of the thermal power plant and the mines of Coal. In addition, Ella Martín attended the presentation of Endesa’s future plan for the area, which she described as “brilliant”, and glimpsed the generation of an “Andorra brand” as a catalyst for new “very powerful” projects.
-You have visited Andorra for the second time in three weeks. Has it been to detail the CTJ, which seems to have not been very specific in the first meeting with the presence of Minister Teresa Ribera?
– We came to clarify the issues that could remain pending, to advance further in the calendar, in governance instruments and to better understand what we are doing with the CTJ in Andorra. In the rest of the just transition zones it has been better understood, but it is true that here, for whatever reason or because we have not been able to communicate it well, I still use this pending day with all the agents.
-Perhaps it is because a specific document is missing detailing, black on white, the measures to be implemented and the specific financing.
-That is what will be the definitive document, point by point. But the CTJ is not only that. The work that we have been developing in the CTJs in all the zones after the signing of the protocols has been a constant work of accompaniment to the initiatives that had been presented to us. We have been taking out many help lines. In other words, there has been constant work and programming.
Why has the agreement taken so long to arrive?
-It has not been long in coming, it is an instrument that we began to work on since we signed the protocols, since we launched the participatory processes. We have been making progress on specific issues. The long-term goal is to replace the 532 jobs that were lost due to the closure of the thermal power plant and the mines and, with all the lines of support that we have been working on, including the Andorra Knot tender itself, we now have guaranteed ITJ instruments 650 long-term jobs. It has not taken long because the objective of the agreement has already been fulfilled. Now we have the opportunity to spin much more finely, to work along lines that help us go even beyond that objective and consider recovering more employment, and even population that has been lost in recent years. The elements of the agreement that are contemplated in the Climate Change Law are more developed in the Aragon agreement than in any other. However, where we have had more progress, this need to sign has always been perceived. It’s interesting from a sociological point of view.
– Has the CTJ been to unite aid: the mining plan on the one hand, the transition funds just for Europeans on the other, and state and regional co-financing, until it has collected 204 million euros?
-The tools have been created for this. For the closure of the mines, we signed a new mining agreement that had to be implemented as of 2019. The agreement puts all these elements in a common framework, because at the end of the day the development of this area has to share some instruments with others so that they have coherence, synergies and we achieve the possibilities that they offer us. Separating the Knot from the agreement does not make much sense because one of the elements of the CTJ as established in the Climate Change Law is the celebration of the knots.
-In previous stages there has been money from the Miner but the games have not been exhausted. Can you now guarantee that all funds will be able to attract investment?
-I do not have doubt. We have worked a lot with companies in this area and others to see how we could transform these aids into something more attractive that could really generate that difference that helps them invest in new ventures. We have published this week a new business aid order worth 50 million euros in which we have worked hard to improve those conditions that will make them have greater absorption and we can exhaust the budget. We have spoken with many of the agents in the territory and I would say that almost every week I receive people from the area or from outside the ITJ who are thinking of setting up projects here and who ask us what the support framework will be like. We have done a job that will have results. We already have a person who acts as an agent in the territory, who meets periodically with municipalities and companies, and it is a very dynamic job. We are very interested not only in getting help lines out but in having them completely absorbed into the territory.
-Is the call for 91 million euros for infrastructure projects throughout Spain included in the agreement? At what point is it?
-That order was written from the consultation that had been made publicly in all the CTJ of Spain. We saw everything that was wanted to be done at the municipal level and we built an order with funds from the Recovery Plan that incorporated most of the projects that were wanted to be developed. We hope to have the provisional resolution before the end of the year and the final one at the beginning of 2023. Many more projects have been presented than can be financed.
-Will those that generate employment be prioritized?
-It is a very broad order and one of the criteria is that capacity to generate employment. Although it is also true that with our orders for companies we are going to work on those projects that generate employment in the private sector. In the case of municipal infrastructures, they are more diverse projects, which also have to respond to creating better services for citizens, important for retaining population.
– Do you trust that the workers who have left to seek a life will return? Will there be a shortage of manpower?
-With the follow-up we do, of those 532 jobs lost right now there are another 500 jobs already simply in dismantling, construction of new photovoltaic at the new Endesa facilities and mine restoration. Employment levels have been more or less maintained, although it is true that this does not mean that they have remained on the same number of people, and now we are going to have a peak in employment. The main thing now is how to attract talent for the installation and, in the long term, for the operation of these new companies. It is a collective challenge. We are going to continue working on training so that employment opportunities can be optimized by the local population. It is easier to attract workers and talent where there is hope and a future. The context has changed and we are in a better situation.
-What balance do you make of this first call for Nudo?
-Very positive. Before, the first promoter who arrived and asked Red Eléctrica for the request was granted. However, introduce this instrument, which has been very innovative and has had its time of work but I think we have been quite agile, it has energized very healthy competition. There have been many companies that have presented projects and have had to work in a different way: not the best energy project, but the best for the territory. This competition has caused the level to rise across the board. The result for me is brilliant, it is a really powerful project for the territory, with many feedback factors of these new renewable facilities with many others: renewable value chain, agriculture, social projects… We are very happy, we have managed to comply what we proposed.
-Are you going to launch a contest by mining area?
-That’s not exactly possible. There are territories in which Red Eléctrica has so far told us that, despite having closed coal plants, there is no available capacity at those nodes, and we cannot compete there. And not all of us have the same possibilities of developing renewable projects. In some places we will even have competitive capacity and yet little interest from renewable electricity generators because the sun and wind resource is more the case or there is a very high level of protection. Where we can, we will do it because we have seen in Andorra that it makes sense to do things that way.
-How is the ministry going to monitor compliance with Endesa’s promises?
-This is very easy, because the winner of the contest has had to provide very high guarantees compared to any renewable project. In the case of Endesa, there are 220 million euros that they would lose if they are not complied with, but they would also lose their own access to the network. Investing in a renewable project and ending up not being able to discharge because the conditions have not been met is something that no serious promoter is going to consider. We have guaranteed that they will comply. After six years, Endesa has to present the audited documentation with the fulfillment of the commitments.
-There are new criteria, such as reserves for women of 25% of the direct jobs generated by Endesa (370) and 30% of the indirect jobs (6,000). How will you do it in a sector as masculinized as energy?
They’re going to have to get it. From a development point of view, we believe that it would not be very fair to go from a highly masculinized sector to a transformation of masculine jobs. We would lose a lot of talent, a lot of opportunities and a lot of ability to establish population in the territory. All those who wanted the Knot had to bet on the hiring of women.
-Training is a priority in this sense.
-It is, and in the Endesa plan there is an important part of specific training for women.
-Was the proposal of ‘free electricity’ for everyone proposed by Forestalia viable?
I’m not getting into feasibility. True, it was not in the order. That is to say: what we proposed so that the renewable resource would also be interesting for local electricity bills was the commitment to self-consumption and energy communities. That is what the order stated. Forestalia’s commitment meant going further, with which it does not score because in the contest what scores is the number of self-consumption beneficiaries. We are not so interested in making electricity free for all, but rather in making it affordable. And here self-consumption is very important. Energy communities are a very interesting subsequent value creation bet.
-When and how are the remaining 100 MW to be awarded in the Mudéjar Nude going to be obtained?
-Indeed, we have 100 MW that we had reserved for smaller projects through “downstream distribution” and we are finishing seeing how we are going to channel them.
– Are there appeals against the result of the Knot contest on the table?
-The resources are normal in all the actions of the General State Administration and are guarantees that all those who participate have. And the energy sector is a highly litigious sector. Honestly, I don’t think that, as we have run the contest, there are many. It is true that there are promoters who are asking us to visit the file and we are going to work with the same seriousness that we have worked up to now to provide the information. It has been carried out very rigorously, it has been an excellent table job to fulfill an order that was clear enough.
Has any candidate gone to court?
-No, for now we have received inquiries and we will see. They are within their rights but we see little probability. We have placed a lot of emphasis on making the contest robust.
-How do you imagine Andorra in the next decade?
We have worked hard and we have hope. What I have no doubt about is that it will be one, if not the best international practice on how to make an energy transition in an agile way: closing a coal mine, replacing it with a very powerful renewable energy project for the future, but one that at the same time time drag a lot of initiatives. This Andorra brand, for the future, is going to be a catalyst for new actions that we anticipate to be very powerful.