In a statement sent to the Lusa news agency, the Platform for the Defence of the International Tagus Natural Park (PNTI) claimed that the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) has now made public the evaluation and consultation reports relating to the Sophia Photovoltaic Solar Power Plant and Beira Photovoltaic Power Plant projects, this “after months of public pressure, protests from civil society and a formal complaint filed with the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents”.

In the note, the PNTI added that the aforementioned documents “identify permanent and irreversible impacts on the territory and point to structural problems related to the landscape, soils, water resources, biodiversity, territorial planning and ecological fragmentation”.

Evaluation committees

On the other hand, the movement highlighted that the evaluation committees “explicitly warn of increasing industrialisation and artificialisation of the Beira Baixa region,” among other aspects, due to the danger of “permanent and irreversible impacts.”

“The APA documents confirm serious structural impacts of megaprojects in the Beira Baixa region,” the platform stressed, adding that the analysis of those official documents “reveals conclusions of enormous public relevance and confirms, on central points, the concerns that have been expressed for months by the population, civic movements, experts, and local agents.”

“These conclusions are even more serious because the reports were hidden from the public for months, despite already being available to the project promoter,” the civic platform accused, reaffirming that the documents now available “clearly demonstrate [that] the concerns of civil society were neither unfounded nor merely emotional.”

“They now find confirmation in the official technical documents of the environmental assessment process. The documents make it clear that the multiplicity of large-scale energy projects in the region can no longer be analysed in isolation,” stressed the entity, which brings together environmental associations and civic movements.

He added that both technical entities and various contributions presented during the public consultation “expressly defended the implementation of an integrated Strategic Environmental Assessment for the entire region.”

Sophia project

In the case of the Sophia project – which covers the municipalities of Fundão, Idanha-a-Nova and Penamacor, in the district of Castelo Branco, and represents an investment of around 590 million euros – the evaluation committee stated, according to the objectors, that a “very significant reduction of the project would be necessary so that the impacts could even potentially be minimised.”

The Beira power plant, on the other hand, contemplated installing 425,600 photovoltaic modules, with a total capacity of 266 Megawatts (MW), in an area of 524.4 hectares in the municipalities of Castelo Branco and Idanha-a-Nova.

According to PNTI, the consultation reports also show that thousands of citizens identified, during the public participation process, "precisely the risks that are now also confirmed in the official opinions — including impacts on water resources, biodiversity, landscape, microclimate and temperature evolution."

"Of enormous political relevance is also the explicit recognition of the extraordinary public participation. In the Sophia process alone, 12,693 submissions were presented — one of the largest public mobilisations ever in an environmental procedure in Portugal," he emphasised.

Strategic environmental assessment

In light of the documents now made available, the civic platform demands “a true Strategic Environmental Assessment for Beira Baixa, which evaluates the cumulative impacts of all energy projects and their associated infrastructures”, as well as “a guarantee of total transparency and timely access to environmental information”.

On the 6th, in a protest held in Castelo Branco, which brought together about 100 people, to demand transparency about the projects of the two solar power plants in Beira Baixa, it was announced that both were rejected by the APA, although there was no written information published on the Participa portal at the time.

The evaluation committee, coordinated by the APA, rejected the Beira photovoltaic plant project after identifying significant negative impacts on ecological systems and land use.

Regarding the Sophia photovoltaic plant, in February, the environmental authority announced that it had identified “significant and very significant negative impacts” associated with the project.