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So far, only ten autonomous communities have published the aid for self-consumption under the Recovery Plan. It is important that the rest do so as soon as possible.
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Insists that the reactivation of self-consumption plays a key role in Spain's economic recovery due to its capacity to create wealth and help reduce costs for companies.
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Warns that the delay in the publication of the calls for tender is having a slowing effect on the sector in the Autonomous Communities that have not yet done so.
Madrid, November 16, 2021 | The Spanish Photovoltaic Union, UNEF, has organized on the first day of the Genera Fair, the great national event of Energy and Environment, a Conference on Self-consumption in which its General Director, Jose Donoso, has asked the Autonomous Communities that have not yet done so to publish in their Official Gazettes the calls for subsidies for self-consumption and storage approved by the Government and framed in the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and the distribution of European recovery funds 'Next Generation EU'.
Jose Donoso expressed his satisfaction that UNEF has achieved that 12 Autonomous Communities have already eliminated the building permit requirement and that the necessary majority in the Horizontal Property Law has been made more flexible so that the communities of neighbors can more easily reach an agreement and decide to opt for collective self-consumption.
So far only ten autonomous communities have published the calls for aid: Navarra; Andalusia; Balearic Islands; Canary Islands; Castilla y León; Galicia; Madrid; Murcia; Navarra; Basque Country and Valencia. For UNEF these aids represent a great opportunity to boost the sector and estimates that thanks to them more than 3 GW of self-consumption will be installed in two years. Donoso has insisted that the key to the success of this distribution is that the management of the subsidies is carried out in an agile and fast way, since the delays in the publication of the calls in some Autonomous Communities is causing a slowdown effect in the sector. "Self-consumption is a form of vaccination against the rise in electricity prices," he said.
Although the subsidies have to be administered and called by the autonomous communities and cities, the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) is in charge of coordinating the actions and monitoring their evolution. For this reason, Carlos Montoya, Head of the Solar and Self-consumption Department at the Institute, explained the details of the processing and calculation of this aid, approved in Royal Decree 477/2021, of June 29.
The total amount is 1,320 million euros: 900 million euros for self-consumption, 220 million euros for batteries and storage and 200 million euros for renewable energy for air conditioning. Montoya explained the differences between the six programs in which they are distributed: self-consumption and storage in services, with 120 million and 20 million, respectively; industry and agriculture, with 175 and 25 million each; storage in self-consumption facilities in productive sectors, with 45 million; 215 million for residential and public sector and 15 million for the third sector; another 5 million euros for incorporating storage to already existing self-consumption facilities; and, finally, air conditioning and DHW with renewables, with 100 million.
For the successful expansion of self-consumption, the quality of the installations is essential so that consumers feel increasingly confident when deciding on this technology. Hence the launch this year of the UNEF Quality Seal for installers and installation companies, which six companies already have. Manel Romero, partner of SUD Renovables and co-delegate of the Spanish Photovoltaic Union, highlighted the value of having a Quality Seal for installers such as the one launched this year by the association in view of the exponential growth of self-consumption.
At the round table on new models of self-consumption, moderated by Antonio Barrero, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Energías Renovables, Joaquín Mas Belso, General Manager of the Enercoop Group, presented the Comptem-Merlon Project as an example of energy communities of high technological value. Belso explained the difference between these and collective self-consumption, stressing that this is the first step to evolve towards communities and insisted on extending the distance limit of 500 meters for shared installations as well as ensuring that they are not only executed in low voltage.
José Álvarez, Executive Vice President of Ampere Energy Spain, spoke about the comprehensive management and connectivity of energy communities. "Now we are going to have much more active users" who will have the possibility and the capacity to manage their energy, and, in addition, permanently, continuously connected, he warned while explaining that the digitalization of the networks will allow "not a single watt to be produced with self-consumption".
José Ramón Estévez, Business Developer at Proyecta PV, spoke about technology -such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data- at the service of shared self-consumption. It allows, for example, to know which loads are the most optimal when choosing potential customers to develop a shared self-consumption and later to make a prospecting and monitoring of the same.
Iván Berbel, CEO of Solarnub, spoke about the models of collective self-consumption without investment, such as subscription-based installations without permanence. Finally, Montse Mussons, Director of Innovation and Markets at KM0 Energy, explained the advantages of demand flexibility, i.e. the management of what is injected or recovered from the grid.
The Self-consumption Day organized by UNEF today at Genera has also had a space to highlight success stories related to self-consumption, solar from the progress in the possibilities of thin film panels, by Lars Norman, Area Sales Manager Europe of Midsummer, as its great suitability in the industrial sector with Manuel De Castro, CEO of Opengy, and Jesus Heras, Product and Solutions Manager, Wattkraft.
José Vicente Espino, Managing Partner of Enerdós Renovables and delegate of UNEF in Andalusia, explained how self-consumption can be a lever for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), while Franc Comino Ruiz, CEO of Webatt Energy, spoke about self-consumption with storage systems.
In conclusion, self-consumption is an increasingly profitable investment because the amortization periods are becoming shorter, tax exemptions are more numerous and, at the same time, new financing formulas have appeared, such as leasing or renting. Their deployment will bring competitiveness and economic activity in the coming years.
About UNEF
The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) is the industry association for photovoltaic solar energy in Spain. Made up of 600 companies, entities and groups from the entire technology value chain, it represents more than 90% of the sector's activity in Spain and brings together practically all of them: producers, installers, engineering firms, manufacturers of raw materials, modules and components, distributors and consultants. UNEF also holds the presidency and co-secretariat of FOTOPLAT, the Spanish photovoltaic technology platform. The platform brings together universities, research centers and leading companies in photovoltaic R&D in Spain.