On 15 March 2022, the Portuguese Environment Agency (“APA”) and the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology (“DGEG”) signed a joint decree regarding the applicability of the legal regime for environmental impact assessment, approved by Decree-Law 151-B/2013, of 31 October, as amended (“RJAIA”) to small production units with solar energy as their primary source (“UPPs”).
In recent years, APA and DGEG have understood that the production units with an installed capacity of less than or equal to 1 MW have specific characteristics that make this type of project not likely to cause significant negative environmental impacts.
However, in consideration of the current simplification of the licensing process for UPPs, under Decree-Law 15/2022, of January 14 (“Decree-Law 15/2022”), APA and DGEG considered that there may be projects with installed capacity much larger than 1 MW, especially in cases of aggregated or contiguous installations, and for that reason it is not possible to conclude that there are no significant negative environmental impacts.
Thus, under the legal permission of article 42(3) of Decree-Law 15/2022, which grants APA and DGEG the possibility of identifying the types of projects not susceptible to cause significant impacts on the environment, and RJAIA, APA and DGEG determined that:
• The submission to the prior assessment procedure established in Article 3 of RJAIA is not necessary for projects using solar energy as their primary source and which correspond to aggregated or, not being aggregated, contiguous UPPs, which are not located wholly or partially in a sensitive area, and which simultaneously meet the following conditions:
- Do not cumulatively exceed an installed capacity of 12 MW;
- Are not located less than 2 km from other photovoltaic plants with more than 1 MW;
- The connection of the sectioning stations to the public service electric network is made via lines with a voltage of no more than 30 kV and a total length of less than 10 km, with the individual length of the various associated lines being counted.
• For the purpose of determining the power referred to in a) and b), all the solar power generating stations, installed on the ground, independent or integrated in one or more aggregations, must be accounted for.
• UPP projects which are not subject to the prior assessment procedure shall adopt technologies which minimize land occupation and solutions which promote adequate landscape integration, ensuring distance to any sensitive elements located in the surroundings, including isolated settlements or dwellings.
