“This industry has failed to explain the effect, benefit and real effects that the development of this business has on the territory.” Carlos Reyero, CEO of Forestalia, thus intones his part of guilt as one of the companies that has led the implementation of renewable energies in Spain.
To alleviate this “failure”, Forestalia has developed a new formula. “Those most affected by the development will have to be compensated. The objective is free energy consumption for families registered in localities with facilities, as well as for local businesses that boost the socio-economic fabric of rural areas,” explains Reyero.
The measure is already being applied in Aragón, the community where the company is from and where most of its developments are located. This decision may represent a turning point in the necessary development of renewable energies in the face of the strong social opposition it has to face. A groundbreaking approach. Almost of the same caliber as the arrival of Forestalia in 2011. It was the first company in the world to defend that renewables did not need a public incentive to be profitable. They had profitability without premiums, they claimed. “Once again, Fernando Samper (president of Forestalia) arrives first. We already did it in 2011 when we bet, like no one in the world did at that time, because renewables could be developed without premiums and now we are doing it again. The benefits can be shared with the population,” says Fernando Muñoz, currently president of Reolum, but who co-founded Forestalia with Samper, still at the head of the company.
Muñoz points out a strategic date in the history of this company, May 14, 2016. At that time Forestalia were just the two founders, that is, Fernando Samper and Fernando Múñoz, in addition to the current CEO, Carlos Reyero. “We won the first major renewable auction in Spain by betting because the technology was profitable without premiums. The big electricity companies jumped on us and even the administration was doubtful,” Muñoz recalls.
Some upstarts in the sector had come to give lessons to the great powers of energy. “They called us butchers contemptuously,” says the founder. It wasn't a random nickname. Fernando Samper was the eldest of the five heirs of the powerful Grupo Cárnico Jorge. After running the family business and taking his first steps in the production of energy for self-consumption, he was clear about the future. He left the family business and bet everything on Forestalia. "Time has proved us right. But the first year was a horrible desert crossing,” says Muñoz. “We were small and needed liquidity to grow. What were going to be six-month permits took two years and you had to survive. But from the first moment our objective was always to participate in the entire production chain and that is what we are going to focus on now,” explains Reyero in reference to the company's new strategy.
Develop 1.2 GW of installed power by 2025, participating in the entire value chain: production, generation and management. Without forgetting the projects they have achieved so far with the help of large investors, such as 4GW in collaboration with General Electric (GE), the first large investor who believed in them in 2017. Then they became the most desired bride and signed with funds such as Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), LightSource BP and Bruc Management, or Repsol. Now they want to concentrate alone on the development, management and exploitation of 1.2 GW of installed power in 2025.
The change in strategy impacts your income statement. Billing fell in 2022 to 97.7 million euros compared to 294 million euros the previous year. But it is your opportunity to grow. Their new bet is on the 'export' (they call it evacuation in the sector) of energy. In future projects there are 8 GW, they are key for the industry of communities like Catalonia. There they already have 3,771 MW with environmental authorization from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and they are waiting for the green light from the Generalitat. “They are not easy projects. They need the construction of large infrastructures but they make complete economic sense. If there are clients, they must move forward,” says Reyero.
