The environmental assessment gives the green light to the Energy Transition Plan of the Balearic Islands

The Director General of Urban Harmonization and Environmental Assessment, Paz Andrade Barberá, issued on May 27, 2026, the favorable strategic environmental statement for the Energy Transition and Climate Change Plan of the Balearic Islands (exp. 57E/2022). The resolution is published in the Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands no. 140, of November 3, 2026, Section III, page 61446, under provision 11018. This pronouncement unlocks the processing of the framework regulation that must organize the deployment of renewables and the decarbonization of the archipelago.

The text is based on the technical report with a proposed resolution dated May 25, 2026, and resolves an ordinary strategic environmental assessment, which corresponds to the Plan as it is included in article 12 of Legislative Decree 1/2020, of August 28, and via Law 21/2013, of December 9, on environmental assessment. The strategic environmental study was signed on September 30, 2025, by Itxaso Gómez, graduate in Biology, and was supervised and signed on October 2, 2025, by the head of the Climate Change and Atmosphere Service, Joana Maria Garau Muntaner. The document was issued by the Department of Housing, Territory and Mobility.

The statement concludes that “predictably, no significant adverse impacts on the environment will occur” provided that the measures of the environmental study and the conditions set by the resolution are met. The plan must still be approved by means of a decree from the Government of the Balearic Islands, upon a binding proposal from the Interdepartmental Commission on Climate Change and with prior reports from the Balearic Climate Council and the Committee of Experts for Energy Transition and Climate Change, according to Law 10/2019 on climate change.

The objectives: from 55% in 2030 to neutrality in 2050

The Plan starts from a diagnosis of “high energy dependence on fossil fuels” and an energy outlook up to 2035. The chosen scenario is the so-called E2 objective, the most ambitious, which incorporates the objectives of the European Green Deal, and is organized into four pillars: savings and reduction of demand, circular economy, climate resilience, and knowledge and innovation.

• Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990: 55% by 2030, 64% by 2035, and climate neutrality by 2050.
• Reduction of primary energy consumption compared to 2005: 30% by 2030 and 35% by 2035.
• Renewable coverage of 100% of electricity consumption by 2050.
• Total budget of 10,378,578,382 euros, of which 93.06% is allocated to Pillar 1, 5.9% to Pillar 3, 0.79% to Pillar 2, and 0.25% to Pillar 4.
• Minimum validity of ten years and review at least every five, with five-year carbon budgets by sector.

Conditions: halting wind power until planning is reviewed

The resolution imposes seventeen conditions and a block of recommendations that condition the deployment of renewable energies in the territory. The most relevant is the wind power pause: wind energy projects must not be developed until the Sectoral Energy Master Plan of the Balearic Islands (PDSEIB) has been revised and the suitability zones updated.

• Do not authorize offshore wind farms until the second-cycle POEMs are approved and an exhaustive feasibility analysis is available.
• Do not promote wave energy projects until the detailed potential study provided for in the environmental study is completed.
• Prioritize savings, self-consumption, and energy communities to reduce external dependence.
• Prohibition of occupying habitats of community interest, forest areas, and spaces of environmental relevance, and avoidance of the most fertile agricultural soils.
• 500-meter buffers around protected spaces as exclusion zones and minimum distances to town centers and isolated dwellings.
• Waste management plan and decommissioning budget mandatory for renewable projects, with a detailed carbon budget per island and sector in the next revision.

The critical reports and the debate over the peninsular cable

The resolution incorporates the reports of the Committee of Experts and the representative of the University of the Balearic Islands to the Balearic Climate Council, as well as the allegations from the GOB and the platform Renovables sí però així no. The expert committee complains that the Plan excludes aviation and maritime transport: transport generates more than 65% of the Islands’ emissions, and these two modes account for nearly 45% of the total.

The UIB representative warns that the Plan anticipates that energy from the Peninsula will meet 70% of the electrical demand and contrasts this with Article 15 of Law 10/2019, which mandates generating at least 70% of the final energy consumed by 2050 from renewables. The environmental body accepts the criticism and demands the reinforcement of savings and self-consumption, while recalling that the second interconnection PENBAL2 was declared a necessary infrastructure by the European Commission’s Decision (EU) 2025/1014. It also collects contributions from the Environment Section of the Ibiza Council and the Directorate General of Mobility.

The declaration loses validity if, once published, the Plan is not approved within four years, although the term can be extended for two more years, and no appeal may be filed against the resolution, without prejudice to those that may be filed against the approval of the plan. With this environmental green light, the Government is left without a technical excuse to approve a regulation that sets the framework for all energy policies of the Islands until 2050 and directly affects energy prices, building renovation, mobility, and the use of rural land.

Source: Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands, no. 140, of November 3, 2026, Section III, page 61446 (official reference: provision 11018, file 57E/2022).