Catalonia is still far from achieving the objectives set for the promotion of renewables in 2030, included in the Energy Prospective of Catalonia 2050 (Proencat). This was revealed coinciding with a day in which the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, met with the various sectors of this field of energy. In this session Aragonès wanted to highlight the progress that has been made since the entry into force of the new decree on the promotion of renewables approved by the ERC government. Thus, he highlighted that the Generalitat has authorized in the last two years a total of 110 renewable energy projects totaling about 1,600 MW.
However, at the current pace of processing, onshore wind energy is in a position to achieve only 46% of the objectives planned for the year 2030, while in the case of photovoltaic projects the situation has greatly improved and could be reach 78% of the objective set for the end of the decade, according to sector sources.
The gross production of renewable sources in Catalonia (wind, solar...) without counting hydroelectricity represents around 9% of the electricity mix; and if this is added, then it totals 15.6%, while the goal is 50% in 2030 (according to Proencat). “We have been saying it for two years, we still have a long way to go,” admitted the Climate Action Minister, David Mascort.
“The number of projects we have today suggests that we will reach these data that the sector says. But no one is able to say how many projects there will be to be underway in 2030,” added the minister, convinced that the pace set from 2022 onwards marks a new trend that allows us to face the horizon with more optimism.
However, the Catalan government considers that the period of paralysis of renewables, over a decade, is now history. To this end, the main argument is that administrative authorization has been granted to a total of 104 wind and photovoltaic installations, totaling 1,484.79 MW, and the commissioning certificate has been delivered to six installations totaling 106.58 MW.
“We have gone from 9 MW authorized in the last ten years to almost 1,600 MW and we will reach 3,000 MW at the end of the legislature, it is an extraordinary leap. We have worked to have them approved with the maximum support of the territory,” said Pere Aragonès.
In this sense, the President of the General Assembly stated that a “paradigm change” is taking place in Catalonia with a new model that is enabling the energy transition, an exponent of Catalonia's contribution to the fight against climate change and the transformation of the productive model.
“The energy transition cannot be postponed,” he stressed.
"Catalonia is moving towards a clean, distributed energy model and reinforces the path towards energy sovereignty," he said. Along the same lines, he reiterated the objective for 2030 (a 50% contribution of green energy to the electricity mix) and to reach climate neutrality by 2050 by resorting to a “sustainable, participatory model that favors self-consumption.”
Catalonia already has 90,000 self-consumption installations (families and companies) of solar energy with a power of 1,061 MW, a figure similar to that of a nuclear power plant, although logically with a much lower production since the photovoltaic panels operate fewer hours than one. nuclear
And “we count that at the end of the years we will reach 100,000 self-consumption facilities; “We are the territory that has the most facilities of this type in the entire State,” Aragonès added.
“If someone believes that we are going little by little, perhaps they are right but we are on that path,” declared Minister Mascort.
But the challenge is enormous. At the beginning of January, Catalonia had 3,702.03 MW of generation capacity with renewable sources, while planning requires building and putting into service before December 31, 2030 an additional amount of 11,706.37 MW (totaling 15,408.4 MW). That is, between this year and 2030, in eight years, it has to build and put into service almost 1,500 MW of new renewable capacity each year, in round numbers, according to the book Renovables: l'energia de la llibertat (Pòrtic ), written by Jaume Morron, Manuel Torrent and Ramon Tremosa, and presented this week.
Aragonès added that the energy transition towards renewable sources will allow the creation of 188,000 jobs until 2030, which opens "a field of opportunities for young people and for people who do not yet have work." He also maintained that Catalonia (“thanks to the transformative energy of the country's citizens”) is in a position to “fill the roofs of houses, industrial facilities and agricultural properties with solar panels.” “This will be one of the legacies of this legislature,” he stated.
The Government maintains that in these two years the instruments have been activated to promote a more participatory and fair energy model, which sets the bases to convert the energy sector into a driving sector of the economy.
“Two years ago no projects were processed, and therefore this was the objective. If projects were not authorized, it was very difficult for them to see the light,” argued the councilor to distance himself from the previous decree (from 2019). He insisted that “the first objective was to be able” to authorize the projects.
Meanwhile, the Generalitat is making a significant investment in resources, human and economic, to incorporate 140 people who will work on project review and processing of subsidies and other tasks necessary to streamline all administrative tasks.
“Our goal was to authorize the parks; although once authorized, it is no longer in our hands to build them,” said Mascort, referring among others to the new obstacles (such as blockages or delays in municipal planning permits) that projects sometimes encounter once they have passed the aforementioned processing. to authorizations on energy or the environment.
In this entire scheme, the public electricity company l'Energètica will play a key role, recently created by the Executiu to intensify the use of solar energy also in the buildings of the Generalitat, among other functions. The ultimate objective is that 100% of what the Generalitat consumes will be renewable energy and managed by Energètica.
This year, 120 installations (17 MW) will be managed and next year more than 600 installations (60 MW).
Regarding the report on biodiversity that the Generalitat must issue regarding the very high voltage line from Aragon to Catalonia (Valmuel-Begues) promoted by Forestalia, the councilor has been "quite skeptical" about the possibility that the company can comply with the requirements imposed to obtain a favorable opinion.
Even with an unfavorable report from the Generalitat in this regard, the State could declare this line strategic and carry it forward.
