Evora, Portugal, March 25, 2025 (Lusa) - The three photovoltaic plants planned for the Portuguese district of Evora imply "significant and partly non-reversible" negative impacts on ecologically valuable land, the Group for the Study of Territorial Planning and the Environment (GEOTA) warned on Tuesday.
In a statement, the environmental NGO, GEOTA, considered that these three projects, planned for the Graça do Divor and Évora area, "given their individual and cumulative dimension, will have significant and partly irreversible negative impacts".
These effects will be "on soils, water lines, landscape, fauna and flora in a region with ecological value", it said.
GEOTA said it had taken part in the public consultation of the Scoping Proposal (PDA) of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Sol de Évora photovoltaic plant, which ended on Monday.
In relation to this project, it argued that the EIA should detail environmental factors, consider alternative designs for the plant and avoid cutting down protected trees, pointing out that if there is any felling, it should be compensated for by excess replanting on or near the plant site.
The organisation said it had expressed "concerns about the cumulative impacts on the land", considering the other two projects announced earlier, and argued that the EIA "should consider ambitious, binding, quantifiable and monitorable measures to mitigate and compensate for them".
" GEOTA agrees with the commitment to solar energy, considering it essential for the security and sustainability of the Portuguese energy system," it said.
However, in the case of the Divor and Évora areas, GEOTA warned of "the cumulative environmental and social impacts of installing three large-scale photovoltaic plants".
And these impacts, it argued, "must be adequately considered in environmental impact studies".
In addition to the Sol de Évora photovoltaic power station project, which is expected to have an installed capacity of 800 megawatts (MW), there are plans for the Graça do Divor photovoltaic solar power unit, with an installed capacity of 260 MW, and the Divor photovoltaic solar power plant, which will have an installed capacity of 210 MW, GEOTA pointed out, emphasising that, in total, 1.3 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity are at stake.
That's why, it insisted, it is essential that the EIA for the Sol de Évora photovoltaic plant, which is "the largest of the three plants proposed for the region", clarifies the real compatibility of the three projects in terms of injecting electricity into the grid and ensuring stability.
The projects "represent huge investments, but little return for the local socio-economy, including in terms of job creation", the Study Group also criticised, among other factors.
On the 10th of this month, when the public consultation of the Scoping Proposal (PDA) of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Sol de Évora Photovoltaic Plant was still underway, a citizens' platform challenged the solar plant planned for the north and north-east of the district of Évora, where the other two are planned, totalling one and a half million panels.
"It wasn't enough to have two megacentre projects in the Graça do Divor area, next to the city of Évora, and here comes a third in public consultation," lamented the civic platform “Juntos pelo Divor” (Together for Divor) in a statement sent to the Lusa news agency.
This third project is being promoted by Newcon40, based in Lisbon, and includes 800,100 photovoltaic modules.
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