Spain’s Renewables Industry Applauds New Payment Scheme

Renewable energy investors could finally get the policy certainty they have been begging for—if the proposal passes.

  

Spain’s renewables industry is celebrating proposed legislation that could provide plant owners with guaranteed income for up to 12 years.

The regulatory framework would give renewable energy plant owners the option to stick with their current level of remuneration until the end of 2031, or switch to a formula based on the weighted average cost of capital that will be reviewed after six years. 

Spain Sets 2020-25 Remuneration Rates for Renewables, Island Power

The Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE) yesterday welcomed the Ministry for the Ecological Transition’s (MITECO) draft bill determining the rates of remuneration for renewable power, intended to guarantee reasonable profitability.

AEE said it is happy with the methodology used to calculate the remuneration rates for regulated activities of the electricity system in Spain, using the yield of the 10-year government bond as a base and increasing it with an appropriate differential.

Vulture Funds Circle Spanish Solar as Windfall Looms

Spain may have to pay developers for retroactive cuts to feed-in tariffs.

Spain’s solar industry is attracting foreign investors amid expectations that the Spanish government will be forced to repay cash withheld through retroactive cuts.

Miguel Ángel Martínez-Aroca, president of Anpier, Spain’s national association of photovoltaic energy producers, revealed the group’s members were being approached by so-called vulture funds, investors looking to buy distressed solar assets, earlier this summer.

Spain’s Ongoing Solar Woes Give Portuguese PV a Push

Spanish developers are building over the border to avoid taxes and red tape.

Continuing regulatory issues in Spain mean solar development is getting pushed across the border.

This month, for example, the Irish developer WElink Energy, which has offices in Madrid and Barcelona, inaugurated Europe’s largest subsidy-free solar plant on the back of a power-purchase agreement with Holaluz, a Spanish energy retailer. But the plant is in Portugal.

New Leaders of Italy and Spain Smile on Renewables

Political shifts have changed the energy outlook in two key energy markets.

New political leaders in Italy and Spain have brightened the outlook for renewables in two of Europe’s biggest energy markets. 

In Italy, the fourth-largest economy in Europe, new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in his inaugural speech this month that “we will work to speed up the process, already in progress, of the ‘decarbonization’ of our production system.”

Spain Seeks $4.3BN Investment to Meet EU Clean Energy Goal

Spain is seeking to lure investment of as much as 3.9 billion euros ($4.3 billion) through its biggest auction yet for contracts to supply electricity from clean-energy sources, part of an effort to meet European Union targets.

The government on Wednesday will seek bids to supply at least 2 GW and as much as 3 GW of power in time to meet the its EU goals for 2020. This is expected to cost 2.4 billion euros to 3.9 billion euros, according to estimates by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Bidders can offer wind, solar or other forms of electricity generation so long as it’s a form of supply that doesn’t increase carbon emissions.

Drastic Changes in Renewable Energy Laws Trigger Damages Award

In an award dated 4 May 2017 (publicly available in Spanish only) issued in Eiser Infrastructure Limited and Energia Solar Luxembourg S.à.r.l v The Kingdom of Spain (ICSID Case No. ARB/13/36), an arbitral tribunal found that Spain’s legislative changes in the renewable energy sector adopted in 2013 breached its obligations under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) to accord fair and equitable treatment (FET) to foreign investments. This is the first publicly available award in a string of investor-State arbitrations arising from Spain’s sweeping legislative changes enacted in 2013. In 2016 another arbitral tribunal ruled in Charanne B.V. and Construction Investments S.à.r.l v Kingdom of Spain that less intrusive changes enacted in 2010 did not breach Spain’s ECT obligations.

Spain Aiming for 100% Renewable Energy

Enough wind energy is being generated in Spain to power more than 29 million homes every day, according to one of the country's biggest renewable energy companies.

Key points:

• 9,500 wind turbines around the world monitored by energy company
• At its peak, wind energy provided 70pc of Spain's electricity needs
• But critics say power bills remain high

New Spanish law aims to slash solar subsidies

Spain said on Thursday it would slash subsidies for its photovoltaic solar power industry, netting savings of around 2.2 billion euros ($3 billion) over three years, part of a law aimed at limiting the cost of power.

The law, which is targeting savings of 4.6 billion euros over three years, will also charge utilities an operating toll and temporarily reduce wind power subsidies.

European governments have poured billions of euros in recent years into renewable energy by requiring utilities to pay a premium for solar electricity in order to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on imported fossil fuels.