Despite the alarm warnings, the Spanish electricity grid is not, by any means, saturated. That is what both the Government and the CNMC have been maintaining, referring, as a reference, to the historical demand peak reached by Spain, before the financial crisis erupted.
The problem, they stress, is not so much about grid capacity but the ownership of the permits. Right now, they assure in the Government, there are between 40 and 50 GWh that are not being utilized, which would be equivalent to the peak demand reached then.
The Executive regrets that the network is underutilized at a time of investment boom and demand for new connections. Expansion of existing industries, new data centers, storage facilities… The electricity grid is currently a bottleneck and the Executive has taken advantage of the response plan to adopt measures.
What measures does the decree-law incorporate?
Electrical grids
- Growing fee for the permit. Requirement of a payment for reserving connection capacity so that the applicant assumes a cost from a certain moment and with a growing amount to incentivize commissioning.
- 'Amnesty' for those who leave. Possibility of renouncing projects without loss of the guarantee in the next three months.
- It will not be whoever arrives first. Examination of applications for four months to evaluate and select based on priority consumptions (housing, essential services, strategic projects chosen by the Government, and existing consumptions that want to expand their capacity).
- Strategic projects. A committee may declare certain investment projects as strategic, which will be prioritized in their access to the network.
- Reserved storage. Hydroelectric facilities may reserve capacity to develop future pumping to avoid running out of margin in the network.
- More milestones. The expiration of permits, introduced in Decree-Law 8/2023, is complemented with new milestones to ensure the seriousness of the project.
- Uses of consumption. It will be identified what the consumption is intended for to ensure it has a purpose and, if not, to discard it.
- Report of applications. A report will be published semi-annually with the granted permits and applications to supervise possible anomalous situations.
- Flexible planning. The possibility of adapting planning and facilitating modifications is recovered, a measure repealed from the 'anti-blackout' decree-law.
Deployment of renewables
- Not like this. The impact of social and economic benefits in the territory of renewable projects ceases to be a recommendation and becomes mandatory.
- More margin. Extension of public participation periods in processing periods.
- Seal of excellence. Based on a series of indicators, projects may have priority in capacity tenders or auctions.
- Criteria for choosing zones. Although the designation of zones will be the responsibility of the autonomous communities, the Government defines criteria for the selection of spaces.
- New definition of repowering.
- Green data. Regulation of environmental sustainability criteria so that each consumption unit is accompanied by new renewable generation capacity.
- Renewable gases. Establishment of minimum biomethane quotas for gas marketers, conditioned on projects meeting social and environmental criteria.
- Energy communities. Increase from 2 km to 5 km the maximum distance between generation and consumption
- Authorization for local entities to promote new modalities of energy communities
- Declaration of public utility of hydroelectric pumping
Tax incentives to electrification
- Tax deductions in IRPF for the purchase of electric vehicles, the installation of solar panels, charging points, heat pumps and energy efficiency actions
- Amortization freedom for renewable investments in the replacement of fossil equipment
- Empowerment to city councils to subsidize up to 50% of the IBI in thermal or electrical utilization systems with renewables
- Subsidy of up to 95% for works and installations of thermal or electrical utilization systems with renewables
- Modification of the Horizontal Property Law. Ease for boiler replacement with heat pumps.