Solar Power in Spain

Solar energy leader

Photovoltaic Solar Electricity Potential in European Countries

Source: PVGIS © European Communities, 2001-2008. . Author: PVGIS © European Communities, 2001-2008. . Permission: Fair Use.

This leadership has many geographical, historical and political reasons. The first one is that Spain is one of the European countries with the highest level of solar irradiation. ³

Also it has been very important that since 1980 the “Plataforma Solar de Almería” , built by Spanish Government in the desert of Tabernas, has been conducting important Research, technological, development and innovation actions in this specific field. But the most important factor is a strong, almost aggressive, public policy of incentives in renewable energies and especially in photovoltaic and thermal solar energy.

This leadership does not mean that solar energy contributes significantly to generating electricity in Spain yet. In 2008 Photovoltaic energy supplied 0.8% of total electrical energy and solar thermal contributed 0.005%, while wind energy supplied 10% and hydraulic 7.3%. But since plants are being installed at a very fast rate (with annual increases some years of more than 400% in installed power) it is expected that in the long run, solar energy will help Spain fight significantly against climate change and reduce its foreign fossil fuel dependency.

Overlook of renewable energies in Spain

Renewable energies in Spain have undergone a great growth in the 2000 decade. The participation of renewable energy in the supply of total final energy went from 6.4% in 2002 to 10.2% in 2008. The production of renewable electric energy (excluding big hydraulic) went from 27.7 GWh in 2004 to 48.9 in 2008. In 2007, Spain was the biggest country in Europe in renewable electrical energy with more than 20% of its electrical supply from that origin and second only to Germany when excluding big hydroelectric.⁴   In 2008,  Spain already produced more electric energy from renewable sources than from nuclear sources.⁵

This evolution has a strong relation with the successive National Plans on Renewable Energies that the Spanish government has put in place during these years. The current plan goes from 2005 to 2010. During these 6 years, the government will have spent 8,000 million euros, generating a total investment of 23.000 million euros. It is estimated that at the end of the plan, the Spanish renewable energy sector will have more than 90,000 direct jobs. Also it is estimated that this plan will reduce emissions of CO2 by more than 75 million tons. The Spanish government is working on a similar plan for 2011 to 2020.

A study made by Greenpeace Spain predicts that Spain could receive 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 2050⁶ .

Feed-in-tariff policy 

Of all renewable energies, solar energy was especially boosted by the Royal Decree 436 of 12 march 2004.⁷  This Royal Decree was approved in between the March 11 Madrid bombings and the March 14 general elections that changed the political party in power in Spain. This Royal Decree established a feed in tariff scheme, with the following main characteristics: long term, with a fixed tariff for the full duration of the contract, providing an internal rate of return > 7 %.⁸  A subsequent Royal Decree, the 661 of 25 may 2007, substituted the 2004 one keeping the main aspects of that regulation.

One of the differences in the Spanish policy is that it gives very high incentives to grid connected installation and plants and not as much to autogeneration. This has meant an exponential growth in these plants. It has also meant that many domestic and installations instead of generating electricity for the private home are being connected to the grid and receiving its real used energy from the grid.

Photovoltaic energy plants in Spain

The extraordinary high return rate for grid connection solar electrical energy has promoted a huge expansion of photovoltaic power plants (called colloquially “Solar farms”) in Spain. 25 of the 50 biggest are in Spain. 70% of all solar photovoltaic plants in Europe in 2008 were in Spain with a total capacity of 2382 MWp (coming from 342 in 2007).⁹  Some institutions consider that this growth has been up to a point uncontrolled.¹⁰

Since 2006, as a result of this growth, Spain has developed its own silicon industry dedicated to the production of photovoltaic panels.

The biggest photovoltaic plant of the world is in Puertollano, Ciudad Real. It has 226,320 modules installed. It generates electricity for an estimated number of 3,000 homes.¹¹ (Nota http://www.renovaliaenergy.es/espanol/historia.php)

Photovoltaic Power Plant in Lucainena de las Torres (Almería)

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sagabardon/3414502262/. Author: sagabardon. Permission: Creative Commons. Attribution non-commercial 2.0.

Thermal Solar Power Plants in Spain

Solucar PS10 is the first solar thermal power plant based on tower in the world that generate electricity in a commercial way

Source: SOLUCAR PS10 Author: Afloresm. Permission: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Spain is also a world leader in Thermal Solar Plants. The first commercial plant in Europe was PS10 in Seville. This plant generates 11MWh since 2007 supplying electricity already to 6,000 people. This plants uses 624 rotating mirrors, called heliostats, and a 114 meter tower (40 stories high) that has a solar receiver and a steam turbine. Storage can be done during one hour.
A set of other similar plants will be put in place in the area and are expected to generate 300MWh in 2013.¹³   These plants are expected to supply electricity to 153,000 people and reduce emissions of CO2 by 185,000 annual tons.¹⁴

Also the first European parabolic trough solar panel thermal plant was Andasol in Spain, producing 50MWh since may 2009 in Granada.¹⁵ This plant will reduce CO2 emissions by 152,000 tons per year. Another technical advance of this plant is that it has high capacity of storage of energy, up to 7.5 hours. The heat is stored in a mixture of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate. The plant is formed by 624 parabolic cylindrical units. It is built in a plain that is at an altitude of 1,100 meters having therefore more solar irradiation than other Spanish plants that are in lower altitudes. 

There is a project called Solar Tres to create a solar thermal plant with molten salt that will have a 17 hour heat storage capacity that will be able to supply electricity in a 24 hour cycle.

These thermal solar plants of the hot south of Spain will be very useful during electric energy peaks during the summer in the south of Spain due to use of air conditioning. These plants produce electricity at a cost 3 times higher than standard generation, but the Spanish government and companies expect electricity costs to rise enough to reach that level.

Andasol. Parabolic Trough Solar Panel Thermal Plant

Source: Author. Author: Laudahlauts. Permission: Atributtion non-commercial 2.0.

Solar energy in buildings

Spain approved in 2006 an Edification Technical Code that obliges new buildings to integrate passive solar energy measures, Solar Water Heating systems, and photovoltaic energy depending on the size and type of the buildings.¹⁶
For example hospitals and hotels with more than 100 beds or supermarkets with more than 5,000 square meters are forced to have some electricity created from its own photovoltaic stations.¹⁷ Spain was, therefore, the first country in the world to make compulsory the installation of solar photovoltaic panels and the second one (after Israel) to make compulsory installation of solar thermal water.

Also new buildings are required to install systems to generate between 30 to 70% of the heated pools and domestic heated water by solar thermal energy.¹⁸
Still this type of solar energy system is less developed in Spain. For example, in 2006, Spain was the second country in photovoltaic stations in buildings with 118.1 MW installed, behind Germany, with 3,063 MW installed. 
 

Footnotes

1. "Large-scale photovoltaic power plants
ranking 1 - 50," pvresources.com, 2010.  Accessed April 2010.

2.  International Energy Agencia (2009). Renewable Energy Essentials: Concentrating Solar Thermal Power. http://www.iea.org/papers/2009/CSP_Brochure.pdf

3. http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/cou...blications.png

4. http://www.la-moncloa.es/NR/rdonlyre...ro20091150.pdf Prime Minister´s Economic Report 2009

5. http://www.mityc.es/energia/balances...ERGIA_2008.pdf Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio. La energía en España 2008.

6.  http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/espana/reports/resumen-conclusiones-100-reno-3.pdf Greenpeace 2007. 100% Renewables. A renewable electricity system for mainland Spain and its economic feasibility.

7. http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_d...d436-2004.html

8. http://www.iea-pvps.org/products/download/rep1_16.pdf

9. http://www.pvresources.com/download/...reeEdition.pdf. Pvresources.com 2009. Large-Scale Photovoltaic Power Plants.

10. http://www.desolasol.org/docs/ESTUDIO.pdf. www.desolasol.org. Estudio de mercado de instalaciones fotovoltaicas en España.

11. http://www.renovaliaenergy.es/espanol/historia.php

12. http://www.pvresources.com

13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6616651.stm

14. http://www.premioconama.org/bo/banco...4_Sanlucar.pdf

15. http://www.solarmillennium.de/Techno...2,109,155.html

16. http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2006/03/2...1816-11831.pdf. REAL DECRETO 314/2006, de 17 de marzo, por
el que se aprueba el Código Técnico de la Edificación

17. http://www.mpbata.com/upload/EL-SOL-...-(FV-IDAE).pdf. IDAE. Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio 2008. El sol puede ser suyo.

18. http://www.idae.es/index.php/mod.doc...7_b36809e2.pdf. IDAE. Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio 2007. Energía Solar en España 2007.