The Ministry for Energy Transition, led by Vice President Teresa Ribera, meets this Thursday with the main employers' associations from the different energy sectors to test sensitivities and implement the reform of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) that must be submitted to the European Commission before June 30.
It is time to review objectives and define the composition of the 2030 energy mix, in line with the new challenges set by the European Union in its RePowerEU strategy designed after the outbreak of the war, to advance the continent's energy independence. With this objective as a guiding principle, the different sectors will claim more prominence in the new Spanish roadmap.
Among the most active is the gas sector. REPowerEU has set itself the objectives of increasing the production and importation of renewable hydrogen to 20 million tons by 2030, or expanding the production of biomethane to 35,000 cubic meters. As well as allocating 27,000 million euros to the deployment of hydrogen infrastructures and another 10,000 million to reinforce the gas networks through which the gas of renewable origin will circulate.
Along these lines, Sedigás, the employers' association in which it represents companies such as Naturgy or Enagás, has launched a manifesto demanding that Spain set a minimum biomethane production equivalent to 10% of natural gas consumption as a target for 2030, in line with marked by Europe.
“We will welcome any government initiative aimed at establishing a much more ambitious target than the current one in terms of gases from renewable sources in general and biomethane in particular. We make ourselves available to the Executive to hold all the meetings that are necessary to align the objectives with our enormous potential and with the European guidelines”, says Joan Batalla.
This manifesto has the support of the main sectoral associations of energy, industry and the national agro-livestock sector such as Acogen, Aeb8g, Aop, Ascer, Asaua, Coag, Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España, Feique, GasIndustrial and Gasnam- Neutral Transport.
They are not the only ones who want more prominence in the future energy mix, the transport sector and large companies such as Repsol or Cepsa (which will not be present tomorrow) will also ask for a greater presence of ecological fuels to which Brussels is already giving prominence especially after German pressure.
The Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM), through the Platform for the Promotion of Ecofuels, has also informed the Executive that the new PNIEC "contemplates ecofuels as one more solution to achieve the reduction of CO₂ emissions. It also insists on the need to promote all available technologies capable of reducing these emissions, since without this approach of technological neutrality it would be difficult to achieve climate objectives.
Undoubtedly the renewable gas that can gain the most prominence with the PNIEC is hydrogen. The great commitment of the Government of Pedro Sánchez after the proposal to build the H2Med hydrogen pipeline, to connect Barcelona and Marseille and be able to export this gas.
The Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aagesen, recalled yesterday at the first International Summit on Green Hydrogen Storage and Solar Energy that the Government has allocated almost 10,000 million euros to promote projects based on green hydrogen and that Spain is among the main EU countries with more projects financed in this technology.
Even so, the national photovoltaic sector asks for more. “That they remove the barriers that slow down a rapid, efficient and economic deployment of hydrogen storage and other technologies. As well as a remuneration framework that gives price signals in the long term, through competitive mechanisms, as is the case with generation sources", according to UNEF.
Protermosolar, will be another of the employers that will go to the Ministry today. The representatives of the companies in this sector are going to propose "that the revision of the Pniec address a real decarbonization based on power and not only on energy", as has been the case up to now. "Currently we have an installed capacity that exceeds the energy demand by 2.5 times, since we have not yet been able to replace fossil technologies, as these are the guarantors of the stability and manageability of the system," they point out.
For this reason, they focus on the storage capacity offered by solar thermal energy with thermal storage. "It must play a decisive role thanks to being able to generate from sunset to sunrise with a security and stability of supply comparable to fossil technologies," they point out from the association.
That it won't be easy to please everyone seems clear.
