Spain is witnessing a historic surge in self-consumption of solar energy, driven by a robust expansion of new facilities that set record installations last year. Prices for electricity have been pressured by the energy crisis, and direct support funded by European funds has helped propel demand. The rapid build-out is sometimes met with traffic congestion and logistical bottlenecks, posing challenges for further growth, according to industry reports.
On one side, administrative bottlenecks impede obtaining permits and accessing public aid from the Recovery Plan for self-consumption. On the other, grid-connection delays hinder the ability of new solar plants to feed energy into the system and generate revenue for operators.
This comes as Teresa Ribera, the Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition, leveraged the opening of the Third Self-Consumption Summit organized by UNEF to press distributors on what she called barriers to connecting new self-consumption projects. The photovoltaic sector, represented by employers, has pressed distributors to streamline the process and reduce friction for new installations.
Ribera urged the sector to move past public-administration processing delays and called on distributors to treat the connection of self-consumption facilities as a core service, not just for their own renewables. She acknowledged the frustration and concerns voiced by companies in the sector.
Networking problems
Self-consumption projects exceeding 15 kilowatts must currently obtain approval from distribution network operators. Large electricity groups, along with others, have faced calls to expedite the connection process so they can discharge and compensate excess generation.more
The renewables sector criticizes the lengthy waits to gain access to the distribution network. In fact, reports indicate that regulatory bodies are reviewing the situation to ensure there are no artificial hurdles to connecting self-consumption plants.
Ribera pointed out that some large distributors may favor their own renewable subsidiaries and their own self-consumption projects when it comes to grid connections, which could slow overall growth for the sector. The concern is that these practices create a drag on expansion across the country.
Additionally, questions were raised about how distributors manage requests to link to the high-voltage grid managed by the national grid operator and the 10% cap on access allocated by law for self-consumption in each node of the transport network.
Wasted electricity
The 2022 boom more than doubled the size of self-consumption in Spain, with more installations and a substantial rise in total capacity. Yet the sector warns of notable shortcomings in the framework, arguing that current legal and technical restrictions lead to avoidable losses and waste of inexpensive energy during the crisis.
Beyond generating electricity for homes or businesses, self-consumption facilities can provide additional revenue by injecting excess power into the grid. However, grid-powering problems have created a significant gap in recent years, with millions of euros in potential income slipping away as energy goes unused.
Over the past year, all self-consumption facilities in the country produced a combined total of about 4,564 gigawatt hours, roughly 52% higher than the year before and equating to around 1.8% of national demand, according to data from the national grid operator. Industry association APPA Renovables notes that a portion of production was not realized, estimating a waste of up to 1,067 GWh in the prior year when energy constraints were at their peak.
APPA’s calculations suggest the electricity system lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of euros in renewable energy last year due to the inability to evacuate energy into the grid, with cumulative losses mounting since 2015. The ongoing crisis has only intensified these challenges, and analysts expect the losses to rise further this year if bottlenecks persist.