A 27 -year -old geographer from Juan Ayuso, estimates that photovoltaic plants now occupy 0.12% of the surface of Spain, but warn that only with those already authorized until last year by the central government that percentage that percentage is You will duplicate by far.
The estimates From this geographer and ambient about the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and Master in Planning and Urban Studies by the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), they are included in the results of their doctoral thesis. They will be published soon in the minutes of the Economic Geography Congress of the Spanish Geographic Association, held last November.
Doctorate in human geography and renewable energies by the UAM, by Juan calculates that in 2024 the surface occupied by photovoltaic plants registered in the administrative registry of electrical energy production facilities (known as Raipre) of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge It amounted to 60,577.6 hectares, the aforementioned 0.12% of the national territory.
This figure is equivalent to the size of the municipality of the city of Madrid, which has 60,600 hectares. The estimation does not take into account thermoleso energy or the photovoltaic autoconsumo plants.
That percentage of 0.12% varies greatly by autonomous communities and by provinces. It is especially high in the Region of Murcia (0.35%) and in Extremadura (0.33%). In other regions such as Asturias, Cantabria and Galicia (which is a power in wind) is testimonial.
The data correspond to 2024, when they had registered in the Raipre 26,190 megawatts (MW) photovoltaic. The previous year, Spain installed in a single exercise a record of 5,594 MW photovoltaic and reached more than 25 gigawatts (GW) of this technology in service, according to Ree. There are now about 32 GW in progress.
The Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate (PNIEC) expects that by 2030 Spain has 57 GW of Land Photovoltaic. This technology will be key to achieving the objective that 81% of electricity is renewable that year, compared to 56% of 2024, which was a new year of records for clean technologies.
The estimate that the UNEF employer handles is that each photovoltaic GW installed is about two hectares of land. So those 57 GW would be equivalent to 114,000 hectares: 0.22% of the surface of Spain.
From UNEF they emphasize that in the information of the Environmental Impact Declarations (day) that are published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), “the entire plot, but the photovoltaic facilities do not occupy 100% of the plots. In fact, that’s why there is space to make storage hybridations. ”
From Juan, Navarro by birth based in Madrid years ago, he has estimated the occupation of the land of the plants with a favorable day of the Ministry for Ecological Transition to 2024: there are 41,155.38 MW that, if installed in its entirety, would lavish the Objective of the PNIEC, so that the photovoltaic would add more than 67 GW, that is, 10 GW more than what the government’s energy plan by 2030 foresees, which the sector is very difficult to meet.
The conclusion of this young geographer is that, if they are all going, with these plants the occupation of the soil would double, to the environment of 0.25% -0.26% of the Spanish territory: about 132,300 hectares, which is almost so much such as the size of the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla and Malaga.
A lot or little? Juan believes that the data is “alarming; Yes, it seems to me a powerful occupation. What happens is that we don’t know exactly what you are eating. I analyze it from the most neutral point of view and this is what the data show, ”he says.
Keep in mind that this percentage only includes plants whose day has been published in the BOE. Those authorized by the Autonomous Communities are out, which are those that have up to 50 MW, although many projects are chopped to overcome the surveillance of the central administration.
According to De Juan’s estimates, the change will be especially relevant in the Community of Madrid, which until now has been characterized by being an energy sink (barely produces it). This region will make a spectacular leap, passing just 198 hectares occupied by photovoltaic to about 8,500.
With this, according to the calculations of this expert, Madrid will have 1.1% of its territory occupied by the current 0.02%: “It has a brutal photovoltaic ring that has not yet been executed, but that He already has a favorable statement and goes from Guadalajara to Toledo through the Las Vegas region, ”he says.
Next, the provinces of Toledo (0.98%), Valladolid (0.87%), the Region of Murcia (0.63%), Alacant (0.59%), Guadalajara (0.55%) and Seville and Seville (0.53%), always taking into account the parks authorized by the central government.
Power density
To carry out its calculations, by Juan it has been based on the concept of “power density”, the MW installed by each hectare of land, developed by the Czech-Canadian Vaclav Smil in 2015.
The novelty of his research is that his is a living calculation. “A unique power density value for all facilities of each technology always applies, without considering the efficiency improvements that allow to install more power in less space.” Among them, move from fixed structures to those known as trackers or the greatest power and efficiency of the panels.
The expert has been based on preceding works and the revision of the day published in recent decades in the BOE to estimate that power density. He has developed a dynamic coefficient for the entire photovoltaic park of Spain, which goes from 0.17 MW/Ha in 1998 to 0.53 MW/Ha in 2024. “In this way it does not occupy the same 1 MW installed in 2004 as in 2024 Due to the improvements that have emerged throughout these years, ”he explains.
In the case of already authorized plants, he has estimated that in 2026, as a orientative year in which “ideally” the projects with a approved day would be executed until 2024, the average power density would be 0.58 MW per hectare.
The geographer recalls that this source has grown in several stages throughout its history at the blow of “bubble” and that “competes with other uses” of the soil, such as agricultural, in which it is estimated that 80% of Photovoltaic plants. Last summer, the Ministry of Agriculture published a study in which it estimated at 0.2% of the useful agrarian surface the extension of photovoltaic parks in Spain.
In recent months, in line with the concern for the proliferation of photovoltaic macroparques and social response in some regions, there has been talk of “invasion” of this source from several sectors. Among them, Vox’s ultra -right, whose deputy Ricardo Chamorro once again used that expression in the last ecological transition commission of Congress.
To defend his pronuclear and denialist theses of climate change, Chamorro said that the plot is “invading productive soils” and that because of them are “starting thousands of olive trees in Jaén.” In this province, the current land occupation of the photovoltaic is only 0.04%, one of the lowest in Spain, according to the estimates of Juan Ibai. Jaén had no new parks authorized by the central government in 2024.
The researcher confesses “surprised” when analyzing the distribution of the facilities, which, “is not located in unpopulated areas,” in a country that has an enviable solar and wind resource and great availability of land. “What is seen over time is that at the beginning there were many small power facilities in important urban nuclei: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and the solar orchards of Navarra. And those of greatest weight are placed in the second metropolitan crowns. I understand that to avoid transport losses. ”
In June 2021, with a less ambitious pn than the current one on the table, Funcas published a study which calculated that, to meet the objective of a photovoltaic solar that was then raised (39 GW), it would be necessary to have 0.15% of the total area of Spain. “This shows that more than a problem at the Spanish territory level is of a total nature,” said this analysis.
And gave the example of Murcia, where with the photovoltaic power and the one planned then, “4% of the useful agrarian surface would be occupied. There is more surface occupied by photovoltaic plants than by greenhouses dedicated to agricultural production, ”he warned. Since then, Murcia has installed 433 MW more, to the current 1.7 GW.
Funcas warned more than three years ago that “there is no socio -economic zoning in the processing of projects”, or limitation to installation in useful agricultural soil: “The incentives to use agricultural surface to install renewables are high taking into account that income They are usually between six and ten times higher than agricultural income. ” And “environmental impact procedures are very little participatory at the local level.”
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