The energy ministry’s environmental division has rejected an environmental permit application submitted by Kykladitika Meltemia, a member of the Eunice Energy Group, for an investment plan entailing the installation of 106 wind turbines, promising a total capacity of 486 MW, on 14 uninhabited islets in the Aegean Sea.

The company submitted its environmental permit application in November, 2018 for its project, dubbed Aegean. Many months of public consultation on the project’s environmental impact plan followed before the ministry’s decision to reject the Kykladitika Meltemia application was eventually announced yesterday.

The company’s environmental permit application was rejected as the proposed project’s environmental repercussions were deemed significant, meaning environmental neutrality at the project’s various sites could not be assured, the ministry explained, citing a related EU directive.

The project’s spatial plan overlaps into a total of 16 Natura 2000 protected zones, the ministry noted.