Spain grew its annual solar PV additions in the year 2023 by 28%, making it the highest number of deployments since records began, says the country's electricity grid operator Red Electrica de Espana (REE). The 5.594 GW new capacity last year improved the national cumulative to over 25.5 GW.
This annual capacity is a growth over 4.686 GW the country installed in 2022, and 3.605 GW added in 2021. Of the new solar PV capacity installed, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha accounted for 25.1% and 24%, respectively, followed by 21% in Andalusia.
REE also calls 2023 a record year for solar PV generation in Spain, reaching a new annual historical maximum of 37,332 GWh, representing a 33.8% annual increase.
Solar PV now accounts for 20.3% of the national electricity mix in Spain. The country's total installed power generation capacity at the end of 2023 was 125.6 GW including 61.3% renewable energy. The latter grew by 8.8% last year, including 661 MW of wind and 4 MW other renewables.
Despite this strong growth of solar PV, it is wind energy that has the largest presence in the national mix with 24.5% of the total energy mix, followed by 20.9% of combined cycle plants.
Recently, the Spanish renewable energy association APPA Renovables announced 1.943 GW of new self-consumption solar PV capacity in Spain in 2023. Solar energy association UNEF pegs it at 1.706 GW (see Spanish Self-Consumption Capacity Exceeds Nuclear Power).
Adding the self-consumption segment to REE data takes the country's total installed solar PV capacity in 2023 to exceed 7 GW. However, according to the SolarPower Europe's (SPE) European Market Outlook for Solar Power 2023-2027, Spain installed 8.2 GW new solar last year, coming down from 8.4 GW in the previous year with a decline in residential installations (see EU Solar PV Installations Reach 56 GW In 2023).
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