No organization has described as bad the drop of around 30% in the growth rate of photovoltaic solar self-consumption installations in Spain in 2023, compared to the record for new installations a year earlier. The Association of Renewable Energy Companies (APPA), which estimates the decline at 28%, highlights that self-consumption follows a growing path and in line with the objective of reaching 19 GW in 2030. In this same sense, the Union Española Fotovoltaica (Unef), which estimates that the decline has been 32%, points out that 2023 has been “a peak year for the self-consumption sector” due to “the exhaustion of Next Generation aid, the increase in inflation, the loss of perception of high energy prices and the lower saving capacity of families.”
“Since 2015, self-consumption had registered sustained growth, but 2022 was an extraordinary year due to Next Generation, high electricity prices and low interest rates and, in 2023, there has simply been a contraction of this growth,” explains Xavier Bou Torrent, director of energy communities at Elecsum (Electra Caldense Holding). That is to say, despite everything, self-consumption has continued to conquer rooftops and has been consolidated with the installation of nearly 2 GW of power in 2023, according to the APPA.
In total, the renewable energy employers' association estimates that more than 127,000 new installations were carried out last year, 88% residential (111,795 homes) and 12% industrial (15,509 companies), with a joint investment of 1,863 million euros. The fall was more pronounced in the residential sector (-49%), than in the industrial sector (-13%). In Catalonia, 42,291 new installations were commissioned, with a total power of 493.7 MW. Of these, 543 were for collective self-consumption, which totaled 13.5 MW, according to the Registre d'Autoconsum de Catalunya.
In reference to collective self-consumption, the photovoltaic employers' association has demanded that the barriers that hinder collective self-consumption in Spain be put to an end "definitively." The APPA, for its part, has denounced the problem that large facilities have in discharging and marketing their surplus electricity, "arriving at the absurd situation of having to block generation with anti-discharge systems due to regulatory and technical limitations." The employers' association estimates that 18% of the possible generation is wasted, 1,642 GWh that would have had a value close to 131 million euros. It should be noted that, in 2023, self-consumption accounted for 3% of electricity demand (7,262 GWh), according to the APPA.
With 7% of single-family homes and 2% of companies with self-consumption facilities, the sector affirms that the growth potential is still very high. In fact, Ferran Garrigosa Carreras, spokesperson for the Efficient Energy Cluster of Catalonia and general director of Prenergy (Prime Rubau Energy), assures that now “is the best time to invest in photovoltaics because the prices of solar panels have fallen between 60% and 70%.” “Low prices – adds the expert – will boost self-consumption in 2024, but they are already claiming some victims among companies dedicated to the sale of panels.”
To accelerate the growth of self-consumption, Unef has called for the implementation of “new forms of economic boost that are more efficient, such as tax relief, following the example of countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, which already apply a VAT of 0% to "These projects, reduce delays in the administrative management of the projects and the homogenization of the 2,000 meters between generation and consumption in all self-consumption facilities."
