Administrations pull the scissors before they are showered with new demands. renewable plants. The government and autonomous communities are processing hundreds of projects for new green energy facilities, and the first major screening of projects left out of the process has already been done.
Energy groups are forced to adhere to strict deadlines for obtaining administrative permits to survive and not lose their coveted grid hotspots, forcing them to return to the starting point of a long bureaucratic race that lasted several years. .
HE Ministry of Ecological Transition and regional councils The industry has had a real run for months to analyze the demands of hundreds of wind and solar projects through January 25, the deadline for the vast majority of requests to receive an environmental impact statement (DIA). After this process, one out of every five projects that preferred to buy a peripheral arrow was left out.
Specifically, Administrations have rejected jointly powered renewable projects (or, in the case of some Autonomous Communities, have even had time to review due to administrative collapse). 15,000 megawatts (MW), 20.6% of the total 10 percent of petitions submitted and their right to connect to the electricity grid have been withdrawn, as noted in the petition records of the high-voltage connections manager Red Eléctrica de España (REE). Projects undertaken include 10,500 MW of photovoltaic solar power and 4,500 MW of wind farms.
More than a thousand projects are followed
After this initial elimination, they continue to complete all their administrative milestone projects with a little more. 58,000 MW, 79.4% of the total, as confirmed SPANISH NEWSPAPERFrom the Prensa Ibérica group, From Redeia group company. In any case, it was just one of several bureaucratic stages that energy companies would have to overcome until they had more than a thousand plants moving in the process.
Projects with a shared power of 58,000 MW that continue this administrative process are not projects that have permission to connect to the electricity grid in the future. This Renewable avalanche bigger in Spain. According to Red Eléctrica’s records, the 129,100 MW project already has a grid access permit (58,000 MW of which 58,000 MW of the administrative milestones race and more than 71,000 MW unrelated to this process) and another 31,200 MW has been requested and They are waiting for REE to grant them access. Total, Demand flood of more than 160,000 MW They are actually tripling the target set by the Government to activate about 60,000 MW of renewable energy this decade.
Once the environmental declaration is received, the vast majority of projects in the pipeline must obtain preliminary administrative clearance from the central government (for projects over 50 megawatts (MW)) or autonomous communities (for smaller ones) before April 25. Administrative building permit until 25 July.
It is emphasized that obtaining these two administrative permits from the renewable energy sector in the coming months requires a much simpler process than that of the DIA and that the Administration is not in danger of experiencing the saturation problems of the last few months again. . moon.
But wind and photovoltaic companies warn that the renewable energy sector is facing another major bottleneck that will come later. The risk of collapse of the sector is that all the construction works of the factories are concentrated, companies compete for the same suppliers and facilities are operating effectively before 25 June 2025.
Hundreds of projects with a total capacity of 58,000 MW will all have to be removed within a maximum of two years after the building permit is received in the middle of this year. A success that the energy sector and the sub-industry think is practically impossible. And to achieve this, the industry needs to build within two years all the new renewable energy planned by the Government for the whole of this decade. National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) and the Spanish market would have to increase almost five times the annual rate of construction recorded in recent years.
saturated supply chain
Renewables sector warns saturation of supply chains being able to build new factories in such a short time, which is shortened due to the peculiarities of the whole process. It is noted that negotiations with banks have begun to obtain financing, which usually takes six months, after the green companies get the building permit next July.
The process of gaining effective access to the transmission or distribution grid takes another six months and is not activated until construction is complete, which will force companies to complete it by the end of 2024 or very early. have the plant running in June of that year. Not only to get the solar panels or wind turbines on time, but also to find the companies that will make the construction works, the transportation of the equipment, the cranes to install them, when there is enough workforce… You are discussing the same services to get your facilities in the sector ready.
against speculation
In order to encourage only genuinely viable renewable projects and to export only speculative ones, the government has obligated developers to meet intermediate milestones and obtain permits within a maximum of five years from obtaining grid access permits.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition, led by Vice President Teresa Ribera, has approved an additional nine-month moratorium on several of these milestones and a kind of amnesty for backers who have withdrawn their applications to retract the guarantees offered. But so far he has been outspoken. refusing to extend deadlines again to be able to build all approved projects on time despite warnings from the industry in the upcoming traffic jam.