Last year, Spain increased its use of gas and coal to generate electricity and meet all demand amid the energy crisis. A reversal in power generation causing the electrical system to break Four consecutive years of decreasing trend in CO2 emissions and shot them all year long.
Electricity companies caused emissions throughout 2022 44.5 million tons of CO2 equivalentIt represents a strong 24% increase over the previous year, according to data from Red Eléctrica de España (REE), the operator of the Spanish electricity system, which is not yet conclusive for the full year.
Thus, Spain broke the emission reduction trend of the last four years and historic lows For the last three years in a row (a minimum of 35.9 million tonnes CO2 in 2021) thanks to the gradual decline in coal, the expansion of renewable energy sources and the electricity demand implied by low economic activity during the pandemic.
This year, we are committed to making the electricity system dependent on fossil fuels and reversing the distribution of technologies to produce electric. The drought caused the production of hydroelectric power plants to drop by 40% compared to the previous year, the contribution of wind power was much less than expected for months, there were accumulated decreases until the end of the year and exported electricity. France and Portugal have reached historic heights due to the problems of their neighboring countries (half the French nuclear park stopped and Portuguese hydroelectric production collapsed due to drought).
Improvement at the end of the year
With this general situation promoting the use of The most polluting power plants from the electricity sector, emissions from generation were most likely estimated to be around pre-2019 pandemic levels, with 50 million tonnes of CO2 recorded throughout the year. The strong resurgence of wind power generation in recent weeks and moderate demand due to mild temperatures allowed the use of gas plants to be drastically reduced in the last part of the year.
For the full year, utilities increased their CO2 emissions by 24%, but registered throughout the year. exorbitant increases.
Over the past summer, increases in emissions have spiraled out of control and Peaking almost 78% in July and 60% in August with the explosion in the production of gas power plants. In fact, in July alone, emissions reached 4.83 million tons of CO2, the highest monthly level in three years.
Gas power plants
Gas power plants increased electricity production by 53% in 2022, Up to 68,183 gigawatt hours (GWh) according to REE data. Thus, combined cycles have become the main electricity generation technology in the country, concentrating almost a quarter of all energy produced (24.7% of the total) and surpassing nuclear and wind power.
And Coal-fired power plants, which are still operational and are already on the verge of a total power outage, have also increased their output by 56%. Up to 7,797 GWh, the highest in three years, has taken advantage of the high electricity prices in the wholesale market, allowing them to become profitable again at times.