Spanish wind assault in front of the Redeemer

Giuseppe De Solìs Valderràbano, a Spaniard in Sardinia, viceroy in the Reyno de Cerdeña, missed nothing. In the "Acta Curiarum Regni Sardiniae", the official acts of the Spanish government on the slopes of Gennargentu, the Encontrada de Nuero, the land of Grazia Deledda, present-day Nuoro, in 1698, 324 years ago, noted with fiscal scruple: 936 Hombres and 1168 Mujeres. In all, between men and women, 2014 inhabitants. Not a detail for the coffers of the Kingdom of Spain since the accounting books marked the most important tax collection of the entire marquisate with 924.08 Libras. Spanish cashier

The Spaniards were beating money for that land taken from the Nuorese government, exploited with prebends and harassment, bag-snatching of land and agricultural production. History, it will be said. Too bad, however, that three centuries later in those lands set in the heart of the island, as if history had been consumed in vain, the "Hombres" of the wind reappear as if nothing had happened. Catapulted to the foot of the Ortobene directly from Plaza de la Gesta in Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias. The mission is secret. Encrypted as never before in a procedure strictly hidden in the secret rooms of the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Armored project

Nobody has to know anything, the documents are attributed to an administrative investigation of which, however, it is impossible to know the details. The operation has a numeric code (8308). From the data in our possession, the procedure is armored in the most exclusive chapter of the physicist who became Minister, that Roberto Cingolani who "threatens" everyone to leave the ministry, without anyone having yet invaded the streets of Rome to prevent him. The path for the "hombres" of Oviedo is emblematic: «Single provision on environmental matters (Pniec-Pnrr)».

Privileged lane

In practice, the most preferential and presumably fastest lane to obtain the authorizations, to score yet another wind devastation on the ridges of the mountains and hills of the island. Without saying anything to anyone, hiding the project in a computer storage room, the general managers of the fourth wind group in the world have decided to retrace the colonial roads of Spanish domination in Sardinia. The project is explicit: "Project for a wind power plant called" Intermontes ", consisting of 13 wind turbines with a total power of 78 MW, located in the Municipality of Nuoro, and related works to be carried out in the Municipalities of Nuoro, Oniferi, Orani, Ottana and Bolotana ». There are officially no other details. To find out what lies behind this new invasion, it is necessary to unhinge the vault of an unprecedented colossus: EDP Renewables, the fourth group in the world in terms of wind energy, based in Madrid, but with a Portuguese company mother, Energias de Portugal (EDP Group ), Portugal's largest utility company based in Lisbon. The reference markets of the giant landed in Nuoro are boundless: Brazil, Canada, Mexico, United States, Spain, Portugal, France, United Kingdom, Poland, Romania, Belgium, Greece and of course Italy. Staggering figures, with a turnover in 2021 of almost 15 billion euros, as much as a financial maneuver by the Italian state, 12,490 megawatts of wind power installed in the world, to which must be added 1824 megawatts under construction.

Cyclopean blades

And precisely among these are the almost 80 megawatts of wind power to be placed, shovel on shovel, close to Prato Sardo, right at the entrance to Nuoro, in front of the look of the Redeemer, lying on the top of the Ortobene. Thirteen cyclopean blades of six megawatts each, double the power of those placed in Sardinia to date. Steel monsters slapped on the proscenium of Sardinian Athens, up to climb over 200 meters in height. Energy to be transported with pylons and cables up to Ottana, passing through Oniferi, Orani and Bolotana. Also in this case it is not a question of renewable energy destined to remain in Sardinia, given that the plan of Terna and Enel is precisely to capture the wind on the island to then send the energy first to Sicily and then to Campania through a submarine cable, the Tyrrhenian Link, an electric leash with an exorbitant cost of 3.7 billion euros. At the gates of Nuoro there would be only a devastating impact from every corner of the horizon. Nothing would be the same as before from that proscenium overlooking the first city of Nuoro.

The look of the Redeemer

After all, the view that from the Statue of the Redeemer stretches down to the valley would go straight to collide with those steel blades on that area that in the project is called "Intermontes", but which in reality should coincide with the locality "Intramontes", the only toponym attributable to that project kept hidden in the offices of the Ministry of Ecological Transition. To govern the Spanish landing in Sardinia this time are not the "viceroys". The company papers are signed by the number one, starting with Duarte Melo de Castro Belo, President and Chief Operating Officer of EDP Renewables Portugal. It is no coincidence that the highest-ranking hombre is at the head of a real corporate chessboard that has put Sardinia in its sights.

Spanish boxes

The project was officially presented by Edp Renewables Italia Holdings, 100% of the European parent company, but behind the scenes Edpr Sardegna also appears, a "miserable" srl, with just 10 thousand euros of paid-up capital. Duarte Melo de Castro Belo plays on all the tables and does not miss the presidency of the board of directors of the company with an all-Sardinian appeal, based at number 8 in via Roberto Pepetit in Milan, but always with a portfolio in Spain. The lords of the wind who came from the Iberian Peninsula to place wind turbines on the ridges of the Barbagia, however, do not enjoy a good memory.

Forgetful

They have forgotten the more remote one and are also lacking in the recent one. It was June 2013 when their countrymen, those of Gamesa, another multinational of the wind, attempted to land at the gates of Nuoro. It went badly, they were rejected without too many pleasantries. And the project at the time, also Spanish, was positioned a little further from the gates of the city of Grazia Deledda, and also in terms of power it was more contained, 9 blades of 2 megawatts each. Today the impact would be much more devastating, considering that the new wind farm would not only be the entrance ticket to the city, but it would have an impact on the entire landscape, including the many Nuraghi that would end up acting as a corollary to those "slicers" of the sky placed on the ridges of Intramontes.

Hombres of the wind

A real scar on that horizon that would affect not only that side, but would also hurt the look of the Redeemer, at the peak of the Ortobene, which has always been the mountain of the Nuoresi. A landscape that goes far beyond the physical space of that peak. Grazia Deledda saw its value forever: «No, it is not true that the Ortobene can be compared to other mountains; the Ortobene is only one in the whole world, it is our soul, our character, all that is big and small, sweet and pure and sour and painful in us ». Now, however, 324 years later, with a silence of other times, the Spaniards, the "hombres" of the wind, are returning to the ridges of Nuoro, in the heart of the island.