- UNEF says ground mounted solar PV capacity installed in 2022 in Spain was a total of over 3.7 GW
- It previously announced Spain’s self-consumption capacity increase in 2022 as 2.51 GW
- The association also expects another 40 GW capacity to be installed in the country over the next 3 years
Ground mounted solar PV installations adding up to 3.712 GW in 2022 in Spain, led to the creation of 74,250 direct and indirect jobs in the country and another 40 GW of these are set to be installed over the next 3 years, according to the Spanish solar PV association Unión Española Fotovoltaica (UNEF).
Add this 3.712 GW ground mounted PV to 2.507 GW that UNEF earlier this year said came online in Spain’s self-consumption solar segment comprising residential+commercial & industrial+off-grid sectors, and you have 6.22 GW new solar PV capacity the country installed last year (see Spanish Self-Consumption Solar In 2022 Grew By 2.51 GW).
While UNEF mentions that this estimate of annual installations comes from its own data, it’s lower than the number published by SolarPower Europe (SPE) in its EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2022-2026 released in December 2022, which pegged Spain’s annual solar installations at 7.5 GW DC. However, in this report UNEF has contributed a feature on the Spanish market, estimating 2022 newly installed capacity of around 4 GW with utility scale adding a little over 2 GW. That means UNEF has increased its assumptions on solar additions in Spain in 2022 by over 50% in recent weeks.
According to SPE analysis, Spain’s prospects have been growing with its large project development pipeline and quickly growing self-consumption rooftop PV segment. There is a growing portfolio of green hydrogen projects in the Iberian market which is another tick on the box for this expanding solar market. The report writers expect the country to add 51.2 GW new capacity over the next 4 years (see European Union To Exit 2022 With Over 41 GW Solar Installed).
UNEF expects solar PV segment to directly employ an additional 80,000 once the 40 GW capacity whose environmental impact declaration the government cleared in January 2023 comes online in the next 3 years. According to the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), it provided favorable environmental impact statement to 27.9 GW new renewable energy capacity including 24.75 GW solar PV projects (see 27.9 GW Renewables Projects Move Forward In Spain). SPE forecasts new Spanish solar installations to exceed the 10 GW level in 2023, the only other country next to Germany expected to reach 2-digit installation numbers this year.
“Currently, Spain already has a total of 19,621 MW of installed power, which represents 50% of the total objective that Spain must meet according to the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan proposed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Urban Agenda before 2030,” according to the UNEF. It says 5.249 GW of cumulative installed power for self-consumption is in addition to this.
