13|11|2009

Renewables receive government boost to get more than 8,000 MW of projects running by the end of 2012

Last Friday the Council of Ministers approved a proposal made by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, to enable the staggered installation of 6.000 megawatts (MW) capacity of wind installations and 2,440 MW of solar thermal installations over the next three years, and thereby reaffirmed the government’s commitment to renewable energy and assured Spain’s “leadership” in the field, according to a statement made by the First Vice-President, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.

The agreement provides an execution order for all the projects that have obtained their corresponding registration in the pre-assignment Registry of the special regime of the Ministry of Industry. It will also increase the average annual installation figure for renewable energy in this legislature to 3,300 MW, a significantly higher figure than the averages of 1,511 MW in the 2000-2003 legislature, and 2,295 MW in the 2004-2007 legislature, as explained by a communiqué issued by the office of Miguel Sebastián.

It will therefore set in motion the production more than 3,700 MW of wind energy and 850 MW of solar thermal energy from 2009 to the end of 2010. When all this capacity is up and running by the end of next year, Spain will have 20,155 MW of wind energy and 861 MW of solar thermal energy at its disposal.

A staggered schedule
The agreement lays out the ordered entry of the wind and solar thermal electric power sources registered in the pre-assignment Registry of the special regime, set up by Royal Decree 6/2009, over the coming years.

This Royal Decree Law establishes the possibility of setting up a schedule for the staggered installation of the capacity registered for those technologies that exceed the objective set out by the Renewable Energy Plan for 2010, in order to preserve the technical and economic stability of the electricity system.

This is the case of wind and solar thermal sources, which will have a pre-registered capacity of more than 6,000 and 2,300 MW, when only 3,700 and 489 MW were required to reach the objectives for installed capacity in 2010.

That is why a route map has been set up for more than 1,700 MW of wind power per year to 2012, which means the maintenance of the speed of installation over recent years. Similarly, a figure of 500 MW per year has been set for solar thermal installations up and running to 2013. In other words, the amount envisaged for the accumulated total in 2010 in the Renewable Energies Plan 2005-2010 will be installed every year.

The agreement approved today will therefore enable the promoters of the installations “to have a foreseeable horizon over the next three years, which will allow them to design their business programs sufficiently in advance”, explains the Industry ministry.

It also provides the certainty required by the promoters and the industry linked to these major renewable energy sectors, at the same time as streamlining the annual increase in the cost of electricity for consumers resulting from the creation of these installations.

Getting these installations up and running will involve the maintenance and development of the fabric of the renewables industry and its associated employment, “with major investments over coming years, where the renewables sector is one of the main vectors for overcoming the current economic situation” the Ministry adds.

It is also an important step towards meeting the commitments made by the country to the European Union for renewable energy production by 2020, to be laid out in the next Renewable Energy Plan 2011-2020, currently being drawn up.