Spain incorporated 4,600 MW of renewable power in full 2021, the year of electricity prices triggered by the need to use cycles
For every four times that a citizen turns on a switch in his home, once he owes it to wind power plants; again, to the rest of renewable facilities (hydroelectric and solar, basically); and the other two times, to the technologies that Either they are always there for their production stability, like nuclear power plants, or they need to be activated to avoid widespread blackouts, like gas combined cycles.
That was the structure of the average electricity bill in 2021, a year highly conditioned by the rebound in electricity prices, which reached historical highs, never before seen in Spain, such as more than 300 euros / MWh in which the daily market it stood just before Christmas.
However, the map of electrical installations went its own way, the one that renewable power plants go through, each time with new installations; the one that is undoing technologies such as those of coal, in clear decline; and in which both the nuclear plants such as cycles, without new plants, but also without closure of their facilities.
The Spanish electricity system ended 2021 with an installed power of more than 112,000 MW (or what is the same, 112 GW). To understand the size of this figure, it can be compared with what the set of homes, companies and industries demand every day to cover their electricity needs: about 40,000 MW (40GW). The rest of the power until reaching those 112,000 MW are available, but not used to the limit.
Why is there apparently ‘excess’ installed power? Precisely because a good part of these plants have a variable production, only predictable to several days or hours seen. This is what happens with most renewables, such as wind and solar. In fact, modern windmills remain the first source of energy by installed power, exceeding 28,000 MW, which is 2% more than in 2020, according to data from Red Eléctrica. During 2021 almost 600 MW were installed.
Photovoltaic, the fastest growing
Something similar happens with photovoltaics. They already have an installed capacity of close to 15,000 MW. These are the plants that experienced the most growth in the past year. They grew at a rate close to 20%, with almost 3,000 MW more than in the previous year. In fact, year after year, the power of solar is approaching that of combined gas cycles, with about 17,000 MW.
Despite the growth experienced by Spain’s two major renewable sources, the electricity system still needs two key technologies to guarantee complete supply. On the one hand, the nuclear ones. Obviously, its installed power does not change, because during 2021 the seven reactors of the five open plants remained active, with a power of 7,117 MW. No more no less. With this data, the nuclear power plants contributed 22% of the light consumed throughout the year.
The calendar agreed between the Government and owners (Endesa, Iberdrola, Naturgy and EDP) establishes that from 2027 the closure of reactors will begin, until the year 2035. In that period, the Executive’s aspiration is to install more renewables and, at the same time, Once, ‘green’ storage technology is developed so as not to have to rely on nuclear power.
The other alternative to meet the electricity demand of the system is to use gas combined cycle plants. They were the winners of the boost that the Government gave them from 2004 to 2008. There is a large installed power of cycles, available when needed, with more than 26,000 MW. Because that is the advantage of these plants: that they can be activated when the demand so requires. And that flexibility is what causes them to be the last facilities to provide light to the system, but by using gas as a raw material, and this is at maximum, the final price of electricity has risen like foam in the last year.
What Spain almost no longer has is coal power plants, although there are still some 3,000 MW available. It’s almost half of two years ago after the scheduled shutdowns.
The forecasts of the Energy and Climate Plan are for wind power to exceed 40,000 MW installed within four years, and reach 50,000 MW in 2030. In other words, it would have to activate power plants at a rate of about 3,000 MW per year until 2025. In the case of photovoltaics, official forecasts indicate that it should exceed 23,000 MW in 2025, at a rate of about 2,100 MW per year. They are the two great aspirations of the Ecological Transition Plan, despite the administrative problems that many entrepreneurs are encountering.
Time zones return
Among the novelties with which 2022 has reached the electricity bill is a new twist on the already popular time zones, which urged households to consume electricity after hours, such as during the early morning hours. The new order of charges and tolls of the Ministry of Ecological Transition partially recovers the penalty for the consumption of electricity at certain times of the day, and the mitigation of costs if the washing machine or dishwasher is put in at night.
Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., they are penalized with charges (the fixed part) that, on average, stand at 0.10 euros / kwh. Between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m., the cost falls to around 0.04 euros / kWh and, as it happened since June, throughout the morning until eight in the morning (and on weekends for 24 hours), the charges are minimal.
This puts an end to the extraordinary measures that were in force from mid-September to December, and which entailed a cut in charges of more than 96%, in addition to the tax cuts.
The Government emphasizes that its proposal for positions for 2022 represents a reduction in relation to the average of positions for the whole of 2021 (including the eight and a half months of normal positions and the three and a half months of extraordinary reduction). According to government calculations, for households and SMEs the reduction in charges will be 32.8%.
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