A realistic, agile and transparent roadmap to guide the great trip to decarbonization

The ‘ABC Clean Tech forum – renewable energy and energy efficiency’ gathered this Friday at the ABC headquarters, at two round tables, six outstanding representations, public and private, of the sustainable energy of the 21st century. “Spain and Europe must continue with their commitment to these energies that will help us not only to have a cleaner and more sustainable planet, but to increase our energy independence, even more in an environment like the current one,” said the deputy director of ABC Yolanda Gómez in the presentation of the meeting, organized in collaboration with the Junta de Andalucía, Board of Extremadura and Xunta de Galicia.

Technology, management, regulations and investment were some of the outstanding variables on aspects such as the current state and perspectives of the renewable sector, around aspects such as solar and wind energy, green hydrogen, biogas and biomethane, energy storage and intelligent networks, Importance of public-private collaborationetc. Factors to take into account so that Spain consolidates and projects what is done in recent years in the field of renewable energies.

Javier Domínguez, energy director of the Enerxic Institute of Galicia; Víctor del Moral, Secretary General of Sustainable Development, Coordination and Water Planning of the Board of Extremadura and Natalia Márquez, managing director of the Andalusian Energy Agency, participated in the first of the meetings, moderated by the collaborator of ABC Company Alberto Velázquez. In this context (‘The revolution of renewable energies in Spain’), Domínguez began pointing out how «we were faced with a continuous process, accelerated in recent years, with milestones in the last four as a 56% renewable representation in the Electric Mix of Spain That, in the case of Galicia, we have achieved 84.6% renewable generation – objective 2030: 85% – ». A process in which he claimed as essential “the importance of agile, simple procedures, with realistic objectives, in an activity, on the other hand, very demanding technology, as in our case with marine wind.”

An activity before which, as Márquez stressed: «We must guarantee the quality and continuity of the supply with normative security. In our case, we are 66%, with the objective of 82%, in a horizon in which sustainability must progress with profitability, so you have to clear uncertainties with adequate regulations ». It also affected the importance of legislating and planning according to the territory: «There have been examples such as government aid based on an incentive fund designed to heat housing in environments, say, cold, something that does not fit the reality of Andalusia. Or the need for us to have a more appropriate infrastructure network ».

Del Moral influenced that «the sense indicates that the appropriate binomial is the one formed by renewable and nuclear (currently 19% of the electrical production in Spain), while the storage solution is not profitable. In any case, public money must support emerging technologies until they are profitable, with a reasonable price, as happened with the photovoltaic, even more when it is, for the moment, four times more expensive produce a kilo of renewable hydrogen than to buy gas ». And it coincided with the importance of adapting actions to the territory: «We must encourage consumption near where it is consumed, which would help us, for example, not to continue depopulating the rural world. And, in our case, that paradoxes are resolved as that through our territory pass the large ‘electric highways’ of electricity consumption … to which we do not access (in an autonomous community in which 85% of the energy produced is outside it).

The specialists agreed on the need to inform the population about these essential developments of the sustainable economy, as in the case of biogas and biomethane plants, on which they stood out how they eliminate environmental waste for energy production, in addition to the R&D avoid Backyard’-). Self -consumption, the essential optimization of storage and development of renewable hydrogen were other addressed issues (in all cases, with emphasis on seeking the confluence of normative and technological support).

Innovative acceleron

In ‘Energy efficiency and smart networks’) Javier Huergo, Chief Investment Offer in Photowatio Renewable Ventures participated; David Rodríguez Villanueva, responsible for Energy Strategy at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Eloy Sanz-Pérez, professor of the Department of Chemical, Energy and Mechanical Technology at Rey Juan Carlos University. A confluence of regulations and technology with investment representatives, consulting and university.

The participants highlighted the advanced thanks to technology: digitalization and they have managed to advance in facts such as ‘smart grids’, predictive maintenance, etc. “We have enjoyed (said Huergo) of a few years of strong development thanks to our characteristics as a country, but we must know how to manage the future in aspects such as negative prices, access to the network, etc., in times when sustainability is already profitable … but we must not forget that capital tends to be in reliable, non -volatile environments, so the legislation is essential.” From the experience of his company abroad (United Kingdom, Chila, Australia, etc.), he added the importance of “optimizing and reinforcing the network with new points, injection and consumption, and managing the massive entry of renewable energy to the system. And of not ideologizing the debate ».

Rodríguez-Villanueva affected this recent route «in which, in 2020, the term ‘renewable hydrogen’ almost or raised, when, now, Spain promotes projects such as Knowledge and Talent Hub, in a new scenario of high energy consumption demand poles such as new data centers». Environment in which PWC provides knowledge and data in reports such as ‘the role of nuclear energy within the framework of the energy transition’ or its ‘Energy Regulation Observatory’ “Part of our contribution to a less polluting, less expensive ecosystem, with ways to guarantee the supply, in which we must know how Homogeneous norm to, in the medium term, know how to socialize the cost and activate the value chain ».

Technology and Law

In the case of Sanz-Pérez (it was during 2024 deputy director general of environmental policy in the Government Presidency Cabinet), it agreed to point out what has been achieved: «We have had an increase in wind energy of 50% generation, or 600% in photovoltaic lot (without having self-consumption) … but the prospective raises challenges, as the need to articulate a regulation of storage very clear and delve into self -consumption so that the availability of the network is not a limiting factor ». And he referred to countries such as Morocco “which in his tickets includes images of renewable energy, presume this – in a country with a lot of Spanish technology – and in which he abounded in the need to separate the ideology of the technical debate (” national governments are very complex, with a size that complicates bureaucratic agility, necessary in a context that is not only a matter of climate, but also, but also, but also, but also, but also, but also, but also of competitiveness.

As the teacher concluded, the balance of renewable energies requires “more jobs and talent, less coal and gas”, in a performance that requires being at the forefront of technological implementation and an adequate, and proactive, regulatory framework.