Spain prepares for an avalanche of new installations renewable energy in the coming years. Hundreds, around a thousand green projects, They have a certain legal period will be operational and It should be operational by mid-2025. If they fail to do so, they will lose the coveted permission to connect to the power grid and will have to start the entire administrative process again.
business associations renewable sector They have been warning for some time that it will be impossible for many projects to meet this temporary limit due to massive traffic jams that will force the entire industry to hire suppliers (the same suppliers) to build the avalanche of new arrivals. We got the facilities in such a short time. Wind and photovoltaic employers’ associations agree to ask the Government to open its hand and grant a new extension to the deadlines. However, their different attitudes about whom and how to devote more time to them cause conflict between both subsectors.
Differences between renewable energy sources
UNEF photovoltaic employers’ association We clearly demand from the government two year extension There has been further support and calls for construction of projects in the pipeline, which will extend the caps of most future installations from 2025 to mid-2027 to avoid a bottleneck with suppliers. without imposing any additional conditions on beneficiaries, However, it will be sufficient to extend the current deadlines without further ado. “We must give more time, but without new obstacles. If new conditions are introduced, obtaining financing from banks for the realization of projects will become even more complicated,” notes the solar energy association.
But wind companies want the Executive to be more restrictive and not just have a clear bar for all projects. Wind Cooperation (AEE) In a letter to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, he proposed activating the possibility of requesting an extension of up to two years for each project, but requested that those implementing the project make this a condition. increased bank guarantees and additional guarantees to support the project They said they had closed the purchase of basic equipment for the construction of the facilities, as confirmed by sources from the employers’ association Prensa Ibérica group to El Periódico de España.
The AEE proposal would include the Ministry requesting more guarantees to give companies more time. Currently, the renewable energy promoter must commit to a guarantee of 40,000 euros per megawatt (MW) of power the project has, and the wind industry association is calling for an additional 40,000 euros per MW from companies requesting a one-year extension. If you request two years, it will be 80,000 Euros per extra MW.
In addition, AEE requests a responsible declaration from the company one year before the deadline for the facility to be put into operation, to ensure that it has signed purchase contracts for the equipment and materials necessary for the construction of the facility in order to avoid the ghost. projects that have only a speculative vocation. “If we do not have the necessary equipment a year in advance, the facility will not be established. “This is clear from AEE, which claims that an entrepreneur who does not comply with this requirement will directly lose his grid connection permit and may be given to another project,” they explain.
The government is dragging its feet
HE The government has already granted two extensions To facilitate compliance with the entire administrative permit process, which takes approximately five years. A total of 15 months of aid was approved to meet the requirements of the entire process at several temporal milestones (9 months for obtaining the environmental impact statement and an additional 6 months for the construction permit). The executive later vindicated them due to the difficulties posed by the covid pandemic and the overflow of public administrations (especially autonomous communities) to review and approve all submitted applications.
Faced with intensifying pressure from the industry for a new postponement, it is now implementing the construction of new renewable power plants. Government limited to giving companies the right to delayand is currently reluctant to grant new extensions, even predicting that he will be willing to do so in the future. “Administrative processes are not the only limiting factor for solar power plants, nor are they the most important,” Teresa Ribera, vice president and minister for Ecological Transition, said at UNEF’s annual congress two months ago. “There are projects that probably need more time,” Ribera said, but without assuming that extending deadlines would be approved, eliminating the possibility of it being generalized.
Last June, the executive approved the last of the extensions already granted by the ‘macro decree’ issued at the end of the previous legislature, before the 23J elections. Renewable energy industry complains about being given only six more months Obtaining a construction permit (in most cases by next January) and this permit will also not be used to extend the current deadline for the construction of the facilities to be completed and put into operation in July 2025. Later, the opinion of the Ministry of Ecological Transition was obtained. He said that extending administrative deadlines ending in mid-2025 was not possible to include in the multilateral royal decree because it could not be justified as an emergency measure.
long process
last januaryor projects with a total power of 58,000 megawatts (MW) have received a mandatory environmental impact statement (DIA) to move forward with their plans. This was just one of the bureaucratic steps that energy companies had to go through before getting the plants up and running.
After receiving the environmental declaration, the vast majority of projects in the preparation phase received preliminary administrative permission from the central government or autonomous communities before April 25, and now it is their turn. Obtain an administrative building permit before July 25 (now extended until the end of January). In any case, there will be that moment when the Government can have it. Greater visibility into how many projects and which projects passed this screening to decide on a possible extension.
15,000 MW projects had received this final permit before the extension was approved, butThe remaining 43,000 MW was subject to decline due to bureaucratic traffic congestion. and in many cases it became impossible to meet the deadline because changes to the project or new requests were required. In addition to these 43,000 MW power plants that are about to expire, 10,000 MW power plants that have more time and have to get permission later will also be able to benefit from the 6-month extension. A total of 1,000 projects with a total capacity of 68,000 MW are due to undertake construction works in the coming years.