Iberdrola España and the Government of La Rioja invest 80,000 euros in the new agreement for the protection of birdlife

• i-DE, the distribution company of Iberdrola España, and the Government of La Rioja will collaborate to adapt power line supports in specially protected areas, in the vicinity of electrical installations.

i-DE, the distributor of Iberdrola España, and the Government of La Rioja, through the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural World and the Environment, have signed an agreement to adapt overhead power lines in the autonomous community to protect birdlife in the vicinity of electrical installations. 

The Director General for the Natural Environment and Landscape, Ignacio Sáenz de Urturi, together with the delegate of Iberdrola Spain in La Rioja, Carlos Sobrino, presented today the main lines of the agreement that both entities have signed for this year 2024 to implement actions that incorporate corrective measures to reduce and, where appropriate, eliminate the possible effects on birdlife in high-voltage overhead power lines that run through undeveloped or urban industrial land in La Rioja.

Specifically, the regional government and Iberdrola España will invest a total of 80,000 euros, financed 50% by each of the entities, to implement solutions that minimise the impact of power lines on the environment. When choosing the power lines to be modified, priority will be given to those that do not comply with the technical requirements established in the regulations and those known as ‘black spots’, places in the electricity network that have the highest rates of impact on birds, according to studies that the Directorate General for the Natural Environment and Landscape has been carrying out for years, and the data collected by forestry agents and technicians from the environmental administration of La Rioja and Iberdrola España.

In this regard, the Director General for the Natural Environment and Landscape pointed out that ‘the 2024 agreement contemplates action on two overhead power lines: the line between Albelda and Sorzano, and the one between Villar de Arnedo and Ausejo, both 13.2 kV’, to highlight that ‘the action on both lines this year will involve the improvement of 25 supports and 3.1 kilometres of line to reduce the risk of electrocution’. 

For his part, the Iberdrola España delegate in La Rioja, Carlos Sobrino, stressed that the aim of the work is basically to ‘establish a safety distance so that birds, neither when perching on the pylons nor when they fly up and spread their wings, have the possibility of making contact between two points subject to different voltages’.

Nearly 2.3 million euros of investment and 151 lines corrected

This new agreement continues the work that the Government of La Rioja and Iberdrola España have been carrying out for more than twenty-five years to advance in the establishment of preventive and corrective measures to minimise the impact of power lines on the environment, especially on birdlife.

In fact, in 1998, La Rioja was one of the first regions in the country to adopt regulations governing power lines to protect birdlife, behind only Andalusia, Navarre and Extremadura. In order to develop the objectives of these regulations, that same year the regional government and Iberdrola España signed the first collaboration agreement and since then both organisations have worked on the survey and inventory of ‘sensitive’ power lines and on their correction, financing the actions in these areas on a 50/50 basis. Over the years, the electricity distribution company and the environmental administration of La Rioja have invested nearly 2.3 million euros in the correction of power lines.

In total, work has been carried out on 151 power lines and 1,668 pylons have been corrected and 583 spans have been signposted to minimise the impact of power lines on birdlife; between the two actions, work has been carried out on more than 388 kilometres of power lines.

Both the legislation developed by the autonomous communities and Royal Decree 1432/2008, which regulates the matter at state level, have established a series of technical standards applicable to high-voltage overhead power lines for the protection of birdlife, so that, since 1998 in the case of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja, new electrical installations have already incorporated the corresponding protection measures. The actions financed by this agreement focus on the adaptation of the pylons installed before the aforementioned date.

Grids, the driving force behind the energy transition

Grids are the backbone of the new energy model and the path to the transition towards a green economy, allowing the integration of more renewables, sustainable mobility and electric vehicles, smart cities and self-consumption, which is why investment in grids must be more ambitious if the objectives set out in the decarbonisation ‘roadmap’ are to be achieved. In La Rioja, i-DE, Iberdrola España's distribution company, manages more than 4,560 km of low and medium voltage lines and more than 590 km of high voltage lines. It also has 2,542 transformation centres in service and 40 substations. The company maintains a level of service quality in the region that is above the national average, with the best year-end value in history.