- The Regional Government of Aragon and Endesa have signed a collaboration agreement on developing actions for power lines to reduce or eliminate the risks of collision and electrocution for threatened birds. The agreement was signed today by the Agriculture, Livestock and Environment Minister, Joaquín Olona and by the general manager of Endesa in Aragon, Ignacio Montaner.
Since 2002, five collaboration agreements have been signed between e-Distribución Redes Digitales and the Regional Government of Aragon, each lasting approximately 4 years, for the development of power line projects to reduce or eliminate the risks of collision and electrocution for threatened birds. The last of them, signed in 2018, having terminated, both parties now wish to continue with this collaboration. Over the period of the agreements, more than a hundred facilities owned by the electricity company in the three provinces of Aragon have been jointly corrected.
Within the framework of these agreements, both institutions' technicians seek the best solutions to alleviate the problems that the electricity network can cause for birds, whether by defining new low-conflict routes, proposing the use of new materials or looking for construction solutions that are safer for birds. They also select the lines to be corrected each year, prioritising those identified as being most dangerous to birds and providing reports on the most appropriate corrective work to carry out on each of the facilities
e-Distribución Redes Digitales, the corporate purpose of which includes creating and operating electricity distribution infrastructures, is aware of the need to carry out actions to remove or make obstacles in infrastructures permeable and so reduce the mortality of animal species and increase the connectivity of natural populations of species. This involves reducing or removing risks to birds of collision and electrocution, especially for species classified as threatened and in places where there is evidence that such events have occurred.
The electricity grid in Aragon comprises thousands of kilometres of overhead facilities, many of them built before the current regulations aimed at minimising the impact of these infrastructures on birdlife, dating from 2005 in Aragon and from 2008 in the case of the national regulations.
This circumstance means that corrective action on power lines is on-going, both in terms of the volume and the cost of the work involved. Medium to long-term collaborations, such as found in this agreement, are best when it comes to finding rational solutions to the problems that collision and electrocution create for the conservation of some of the most threatened bird species in the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Bonelli's eagle, the golden kite or the bearded vulture.
About Endesa
Endesa is the largest electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. The company is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. Endesa operates an end-to-end business from generation to marketing and through Endesa X also offers value-added services aimed at the decarbonisation of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and therefore strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power España, the electrification of the economy and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. We have a workforce of 9,600 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.