Spain Plans Large Grid Investments To Integrate Renewables

Spain’s grid operator will invest billions of U.S. dollars by 2022 to accommodate and integrate a planned increase in the country’s renewable energy capacity, the grid operator Red Eléctrica de España said this week.

Spain has an ambitious climate and renewables plan, which targets to have the country’s power generation go 100-percent renewable by 2050, and cut carbon emissions by 90 percent compared to 1990.

As an interim target, by 2030, Spain plans to achieve a 21-percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990, have the share of renewables in final energy consumption at 42 percent, and generate 74 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources.  

This plan, however, has been put forward by the Socialist government, whose 2019 budget was defeated in Parliament last month, resulting in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez calling a snap election which will be held at the end of April.

As José Rojo Martín of PV-Tech notes, the outcome of the elections will determine if the ambitious renewables plan will become reality.

Nevertheless, the grid operator Red Eléctrica de España will invest a total of US$3.64 billion (3.221 billion euro) by 2022 in making the energy transition possible, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The planned investment for accommodating renewables accounts for more than half, or 53 percent, of the total US$6.8 billion (6 billion euro) investments the company will make by 2022.  

Nearly half of the grid operator’s energy transition investment—US$1.7 billion (1.5 billion euro)—will go to integration of renewable capacity through new connections and access points. Another US$1 billion (908 million euro) is earmarked to boost the reliability of the system and security of electricity supply, US$490 million (434 million euro) will go to digitalization and technology, US$243 million (215 million euro) to energy storage projects, and US$61 million (54 million euro) to energy control systems.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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