RE Auction For Spanish Islands Soon

Spain is planning to hold a new renewable energy auction for its islands in the first four months of 2017, stated an official release on January 10, 2017.

The country already has planned an auction for renewable energy capacity of up to 3 GW on the mainland (see Spain To Launch 3 GW Tender).

The 3 GW capacity will be auctioned through a competitive process and will have to be commissioned before December 31, 2019. The schedule for this auction is supposed to be announced soon.

With renewables powering its islands, Spain aims to replace the current generation of fossil fuels, improving and securing power supply and reducing the cost of power generation through renewables thereby bringing down the costs for end consumers. However, there are no more details shared by the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda in the official press release on the subject. It just states that the auction will allow different technologies to compete in equal conditions to ascertain what would entail a lower cost for the consumer.

Spain is targeting a capacity of 20% of renewables by 2020. In 2014, it was 17.3% against the targeted 20%, contrary to the expected 12.1% for that year.

Since January 1, 2017, the government has doubled the sun tax for self-consumers in the Balearic Islands. They will now have to pay €40 per MWh of green energy produced and consumed. The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) commented that this decision will affect 300 to 400 self-consumption facilities throughout the archipelago. It termed the decision ‘an unjustifiable error’, something that aims to punish those who had planned investments to produce part of their electric energy through solar power.