According to the ejidatarios, the company argued that the investment was no longer viable and feasible due to the implications of the electricity reform and the position of the CFE, before the clean energy developers
The Spanish wind energy company Siemens Gamesa terminated the contracts signed with some 500 farmers from the municipality of Santo Domingo Ingenio, Istmo de Tehuantepec, and with this canceled its project to build the El Sauzal wind farm, where it would invest around 600 million dollars to produce 150 megawatts of electricity.
Peasants from Ejido Santo Domingo confirmed to EL UNIVERSAL that on Thursday afternoon an assembly was held at the Casa Ejidal in which the Siemens Gamesa development manager for Latin America, Jesús Abril Medina, was present, who announced the completion of contracts for the rental of land.
The ejidatario José Esteban Bante Marín, revealed that the argument offered by the wind energy company for the termination of the contracts was that the investment was no longer viable and feasible due to the implications of the electricity reform and the position of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE ), before clean energy developers.
“Nobody expected this news. The assembly was yesterday Thursday and they invited us two days in advance. We are in shock ”, confessed Bante Marín. Imagine what we are going to lose, he added.
The contracts were signed for the rental of a polygon of two thousand hectares of land. Many farmers refused to sign the notification, only a few did.
In the assembly with Jesús Abril Medina, we were very clear when we told him that we will not sign the termination of the contract if, beforehand, the Gamesa company does not pay a debt of just over three million pesos, for the concept of land reserves corresponding to the last five months of last year and every month of this 2021. said the farmer Bante Marín.
Other peasants, explained the ex-ejidal commissioner, Carlos Domínguez, because the Gamesa company has not notified the National Agrarian Registry (RAN), so that the lands of the two thousand hectare polygon, where the construction of the wind farm was planned, which freed from any commitment.
In order for the contracts to be terminated, there must be a sum of agreements and wills between the parties. It cannot happen as it happened in the assembly on Thursday, where all of a sudden they tell the peasants: I am no longer going to build the park and the contract is over. The peasants are also going to demand compensation, said Carlos Domínguez.
Since last year, as reported by EL UNIVERSAL, the peasants who rent their land to Siemens Gamesa and other companies that produce electricity as Independent Producer and sell it to the CFE, have shown concerns about the imminent changes in the electricity sector.
After the company Siemens Gamesa, which would generate electricity under the self-supply scheme, announced the termination of the contracts, uncertainty grew among the farmers who rent to the companies Acciona, Enel and Iberdrola, which operate wind farms in Santo Domingo Ingenio, and whose production is sold to the CFE.
Source: oaxaca.eluniversal.com.mx
