[ad_1]
Spain is experiencing a veritable explosion of renewables, a trend that is placing it in the first European division in decarbonization and that is plummeting the prices of daylight hours in which the sun and the wind converge. This accelerated, unprecedented take-off, obligatory -however- to an also unprecedented reinforcement of the transmission and distribution networks to avoid spills of clean energy. This is the belief, at least, of the energy consultancy Aurora Energy Research, created by several academics from the University of Oxford, which warns in a study published this Wednesday that the renewable projects that will come into operation in the coming years “far exceed” the expected growth of the network.
“In recent years, Spain’s electricity transmission system has not grown at a rate comparable to the rapid increase in renewables, creating areas where local transmission and distribution networks do not have the capacity to deliver available power to consumers. , causing interruptions in generation or discharges”, point out the Aurora technicians. According to their data, the volume of wasted solar and wind energy “increased by more than ten times” in 2022 compared to the previous year.
Both the congestion and the operational limitations of the electrical network represent, according to the head of the British consultancy for the Iberian Peninsula, Ana Barillas, “a significant risk for the renewable energy sector in Spain”. “Without planning and investment to ease technical constraints on the grid, renewable energy dumps unravel, threatening developer and investor returns and therefore investment in future projects,” she completes.
Although the rise of energy storage systems – increasingly technologically mature and whose profitability grows as the price gap widens between the cheapest and most expensive hours of the day – “could offer a critical solution in the short term, By storing energy that would otherwise be dumped during periods when the grid is saturated”, Barillas explains, “the long-term solution requires large investments in the grid that maximize the integration of renewables into the electrical system”.
80% of generation will be renewed in 2030, more than before the Government
The British firm without a doubt, far from it, of the firing power of Spain with renewable energies. On the contrary: he believes that they will account for 80% of all the electricity produced in 2030, a figure that is even above the 74% forecast by the Government. The problem, he says, is that this flow of new projects “far exceeds the projected capacity of new assets by Red Eléctrica de España (REE), which indicates that the restrictions of the network and the remaining costs for developers, investors and consumers will consume until steps are taken to address them.
According to the figures compiled by Aurora, in its current planning for Red Eléctrica it only plans to install 16.6 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power by 2026. A figure that, it emphasizes, is “well below” the what will actually come into operation: only the projects with a favorable environmental impact declaration add up to more than 60 GW. “Installations not considered by REE would add additional pressure to the grid (…) and the location of the projects, far from areas of high energy demand, could worsen local grid constraints.”
The adjustment market, a great extra cost for consumers
The growing activity of the technical restrictions market —the one that adjusts the system minute by minute, accompanying the forecast supply and demand to the real one, in most cases starting up gas or coal plants— meant an additional cost of 1,300 million for consumers, up to 68 euros per household. If there is no substantial reinforcement of the network and a gesture of demand that allows the consumption peaks to be synchronized with those of generation, that figure will not stop increasing in the coming years.
“As installed renewable generation capacity increases and grid constraints worsen, technical constraint market volumes will continue to grow,” said Christina Rentell, Aurora Peninsula analyst. “In the future, the evolution arose from both fundamental and political factors, such as the growth in electricity demand or the growing participation of flexible assets, such as batteries or electrolyzers. In any case, renewable energy developers will need to assess the impact of losses on their investment plans.”
Follow all the information of Economy and Business in Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter
Five Days agenda
The most important economic appointments of the day, with the keys and the context to understand their scope.
RECEIVE IT IN YOUR MAIL
Subscribe to continue reading
Read the limits of sin
[ad_2]
