The expansion of self-consumption in Spain reached unprecedented levels last year. It marked a clear turning point: in 2022, as much photovoltaic self-consumption was installed in the country as in all prior years combined. Installations doubled, and power output doubled again, driven by rising electricity costs and the appeal of solar panels for homes and businesses seeking to cut bills by producing electricity on site.
According to data in their Annual Report, renewable energy companies opened facilities totaling more than 2,500 MW of capacity nationwide, more than doubling the previous year’s deployment and bringing total active photovoltaic capacity in the country to about 5,250 MW, as reported by the Spanish Photovoltaic Association (UNEF).
“It was not an average year; it was a peak year. It was extraordinary.” Said José Donoso, later highlighting that the surge was amplified by historically high electricity prices and substantial subsidies from European funds. Yet after last year’s rapid growth, market momentum appears to be slowing down in some segments.
While UNEF warns of a dramatic slowdown in residential self-consumption installations, industrial and workplace deployments continue at a solid pace. The analysis from UNEF suggests that many individuals have tempered their view of persistently high electricity prices, which remain well above historical averages despite not reaching the crisis peak. There is also concern that European aid did not fully reach consumers, dampening the perceived value of subsidies.
Half a million requests
The renewable energy sector cautions about a major backlog in processing aid across autonomous communities. About 500,000 aid requests face slow disbursement, with some regional administrations failing to honor demands and causing long delays in distributing funds. “There is a huge delay in the administration of subsidies. Two years of delays are piling up before applicants,” Donoso says. “Citizens will receive the aid eventually, but delays erode subsidies’ power to drive self-consumption.”
The central government has approved multiple support programs to encourage self-consumption, including 1,320 million euros from European funds and an additional 200 million euros in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan annex. “Many autonomous communities have not started paying yet. Customers want to know when they’ll get help, and the reality is there are two-year delays in obtaining it,” Donoso notes.
To address administrative collapse, UNEF proposes replacing subsidies with tax breaks to speed transactions and make them nearly automatic, while urging autonomous governments to allocate more resources to staff handling these procedures.
Record year for all photovoltaics
Looking at the entire photovoltaic sector, not just self-consumption, 2022 stood out as a historic year with a record 7,200 MW of new photovoltaic capacity installed, far surpassing the previous year’s figure of roughly 4,600 MW. This data comes from the annual report of the sector’s leading employers. In 2022, the industry installed 4,701 MW of new PV capacity in surface plants, a rise of about 25% over 2021’s 3,500 MW, underscoring the year as the best in the industry’s history. Through the year, the sector added approximately 2,300 MW of new capacity by August, with UNEF suggesting that this figure could easily double by year’s end as projects continued to advance and receive funding support.