Legislation
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In May 2007, the Decree-Law nr. 225/2007 of the Government reestablished the tariff foreseen in the Decree-Law nr. 339-C/2001 of 29 of December for wave energy and introduces some improvements to articulate licensing procedures related to the installation of renewable devices with environmental legislation. In January 2008 the Decree-Law nr. 5/2008 regulated a Portuguese Pilot Zone for the installation of wave energy devices offshore São Pedro de Moel, with a total area of 320 km2 at water depths between 30 and 90 m and an estimated installed capacity of 250 MW. WavEC’s role In 2004 the WavEC mentioned for the first time the difficulty of licensing procedure of wave energy farms, appealing to the necessity of a simple and balanced licensing process in order to attract the technological development in this area to Portugal as well as the participation of national companies in this development from its early stage. It was in this context that the WavEC started the activity of site identification on the western Portuguese coast with water depths of between 50 and 80 meters deep, with suitable characteristics to the installation of wave energy farms. The licensing process is a governmental tool that has a direct impact on the environmental protection, territorial arrangement and socio-economic development. In Portugal there is not much experience regarding licensing procedures at sea. The AWS pilot plant (Dutch technology) was the first technology in Portugal that requested license to be installed offshore Póvoa de Varzim. The process was accompanied by a project commission coordinated by the Instituto de Ambiente (Environmental Institute). It was in this particular context that the WavEC mentioned the necessity of a licensing policy for wave energy farms that would distinguish the current stage of development of the technology, with still very limited installation power and therefore constituting less problematic for environmental risks or conflict of interests with other objects, from the future mature and economic viable stage of technology. Public funding may support generic infra-structural issues, such as availability of connection point or technical and scientific capacity (qualified man force, technical means, intervention etc.). On the other hand, the WavEC has appealed also for the necessity of a differential tariff according to the different phases of maturity and potential of technologies. In the paper “estado actual da energia das ondas e as perspectivas nacionais” (state of art of wave energy and national perspective) by A. Sarmento, F. Neumann and V. La Regina the WavEC mentions the necessity to develop a national strategy for this sector, laying out ideas of this strategy and issues to be taken into consideration. The article mentions the triple opportunity that wave energy represents to Portugal: production of renewable energy, socio-economic development with exportations and creation of qualified jobs and technology and the rising of an industrial cluster focused to the ocean. |
