The energy transition model (…) that replaces production capacity from a fossil model with one based on renewable energies (…) promotes the proliferation of macro photovoltaic or wind power plants that transform and consume agricultural land intensively.
(…) for a complete and just transition, it is essential to develop a strategy based jointly on the renewable nature of energy, efficiency and, in particular, the development of sufficiency policies.
(…) as important as achieving a zero emissions model (…), will be to reduce the social demand for energy and increase awareness of its importance in order to achieve a truly sustainable social and productive model.
The energy transition model, sponsored by government strategies and large and “renewed” energy companies, focuses its development on a new model that replaces the production capacity from a fossil model with one based on renewable energies. The key aspect focuses on maintaining the level of production by changing the source of energy production.
The search for this model promotes the proliferation of macro photovoltaic or wind power plants that transform and consume agricultural land in an intensive manner, especially in the traditional soils for rainfed crops. In this way, the installation of macro renewable energy plants has become a kind of “new Dorado”, where the benefits for the environment in the search for a new decarbonized production model justify the intensive and uncritical consumption of arable land.
In the evolution towards energy transition, social agents, public administrations and especially companies have forgotten that for a complete and fair transition it is essential to develop a strategy based jointly on the renewable nature of energy, efficiency and, especially, the development of sufficiency policies. The objective of the latter would be to minimize the environmental impact of anthropic activities by reducing the demand for unnecessary energy services. In this sense, energy sufficiency in Spain has been oriented by public administrations to very partial and symbolic measures such as Royal Decree-Law 14/2022 and Royal Decree-Law 18/2022, focused on the reduction of gas consumption in the context of the war in Ukraine, or Order PCM/466/2022, of May 25, applicable to the General State Administration and the entities of the state institutional public sector. In other words, efforts so far have focused on increasing the production of renewables and improving their consumption efficiency, but leaving aside the importance of reducing total energy demand to accelerate the energy transition and create truly sustainable societies.
This type of action aimed at achieving a fair and truly sustainable energy transition involves facing changes that go beyond the decarbonization of the production model. However, a fully renewable energy system will not automatically lead to sustainable societies. As the IPCC points out, this requires going further: “initiating fundamental changes in the functioning of society, including changes in underlying values, worldviews, ideologies, social structures, political and economic systems and power relations”.
It is thus evident that in a planet subject to increasing global warming, it will be as important as achieving a zero emissions model, in line with the European Green Pact, to reduce the social demand for energy and increase awareness of its importance in order to achieve a truly sustainable social and productive model.
In order to deepen in the idea of energy sufficiency and its social implications, we attach a couple of texts that allow the reader to investigate this concept:
Embracing sufficiency to accelerate the energy transition (2025).
Energy Sufficiency. The missing lever to tackle the energy crisis (2022).
