The CEO of Iberdrola Spain, Mario Ruiz-Tagle, has demanded this Wednesday that Spain undertake a 20-year pact to guarantee investments in renewable energies that must be developed throughout 2023.
"A stable and predictable regulatory environment is needed to address all investments in renewable projects that have received authorization in this 2023 that guarantees profitability and that also contemplates a stable fiscal policy", the manager assured during his speech on the days of celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Cinco Días newspaper.
Ruiz-Tagle has given as an example the reality of Brazil, the country he comes from and where he has run Iberdrola's business for years. “It is necessary to work on the dialogue between the government, society and companies because only regulatory stability is what guarantees investment and that security is what has attracted so much investment in Brazil”, he assured.
The manager has been opposed to Spain hoisting its status as an energy island in order to implement different regulatory realities because, as he has commented, he considers it a drag on the industry. “For example, installing a solar plant on the border between Spain and Portugal means that if you install it in Spain you have a cap on income for the electricity produced of 67 euros, if you do it in Portugal, the cap is 180 euros. What do you think an investor will do? ”, He pointed out.
The director of the electric company that is most committed to renewable energies has not lost any pledge during his speech this Wednesday to emphasize fossil fuels as the center of the energy transition. “You have to look at the electricity market, but also that of fossil fuels. In this transition we are going to encounter many supply tensions and it should be remembered that 80% of electricity is still produced from fossil fuels. This is where you have to accelerate ”, he insisted
A focus on which other guests at the event have also focused, such as the CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, although with a different focus. Imaz has asked for the umpteenth time that the European Union address the decarbonization process without ideologies and betting on all the technologies that help to achieve it because, according to the manager, "electrification by itself is a mistake."
Along the same lines, Loreto Ordoñez, director of Eni, pointed out, "The new National Energy and Climate Plan that has to be approved this month must be very ambitious and activate other levers to accelerate decarbonization. In addition to electrification, it must consider challenges in renewable gases and green molecules, storage technology, and consider energy security as a strategic point”.
The board recalled that Spain has "enormous potential" as a producer of methanol (a renewable gas from waste) whose production, it says, "could be multiplied by four".
As it could not be otherwise, in an event focused on the energy transition, green hydrogen has been another of the protagonists of the speeches of the participants.
"It is a technology that still has to mature and for this we need encouragement and public aid," Ordoñez pointed out.
In this sense, the CEO of Enagás, Arturo Aizpiriz, has demanded that the new PNIEC take into account the need to promote this gas as a strategic element for storage. "Molecules are stored better than electrons," he stressed. Without forgetting that this national plan must contemplate the necessary financing for the development of the “large primary transport infrastructures”.
As for the near future, all managers have agreed on an optimistic vision. They rule out tensions in prices of the caliber of those suffered last year. "The fill levels of the reserves for the winter are now at 70% in Europe and 95% in Spain, nothing to do with the situation last year", pointed out Arturo Gonzalo.
"There may be some tension derived from a colder winter than the previous one, but not like what happened on the 22nd," Imaz also acknowledges.
