The Renewable Foundation highly values the Government’s inclusion of several of its long-standing demands in the Royal Decree to strengthen the electricity system after the blackout. Regulatory progress will need to be accompanied by short-term implementation times, but it is unequivocal that the tools and initiatives contemplated will have a favorable impact on accelerating the energy transition to renewables.
Among the most relevant and impactful measures is the creation of a self-consumption manager, a long-standing request from the organizations that promote this generation modality.
Its creation and implementation will ensure that there is a person, either natural or legal, acting as a mediator and representing the interests of consumers associated with self-consumption, streamlining the processing processes and safeguarding the rights of citizens who supply their own energy, whether individually or collectively. Furthermore, the maximum distance between generation and self-consumption has been extended to 5 kilometers .
All the measures related to storage , whether stand-alone or hybridized with renewables, also represent a step forward. The declaration of public utility, the simplification of procedures for hybridization projects, and flexible access permits will undoubtedly accelerate the process, ensure profitability, and promote the development and grid access of this technology, which is essential for managing and supporting the stability of the electrical system.
All of this is essential to ensure, on the one hand, compliance with the deadlines for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants and, on the other, a gradual reduction in the contribution of combined-cycle plants to the electricity mix, as this will reduce the discharges from renewable energy sources.
Furthermore, the bureaucratic burden for repowering renewable energy facilities is being eased, a key measure for wind power to continue expanding and renewing the farms installed at the beginning of the century.
Also, as requested, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) will be limited to the differential impact between the characteristics of the previous farm and the repowered one, without having to conduct a new EIA from scratch, as if it were a new facility.
However, a new reform is pending so that facilities subject to RECORE can count all hours, even if they are negative or at zero price, as the Renewable Foundation has been demanding for years.
The new mandates addressed to the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) and the System Operator (OS), Red Eléctrica Española (REE) , to prepare reports, periodic inspection plans and proposals for regulatory improvements regarding the control of the replacement and voltage system and the application of P.0 7.4 are going in the right direction.
There is a clear need to continue demanding better coordination and transparency of measurement data between distribution companies and the OS, in view of the disparity of technical reports on what happened on April 28. Along these lines, it is key to continue demanding the creation of the new National Energy Commission (CNE) to provide it with greater resources and autonomy to face the major challenges that lie ahead, as has been evident in recent months.
It is worth highlighting the commitment announced by the Council of Ministers to set a flexibility target for the electricity system . However, many questions remain, such as how this flexibility will be measured, its magnitude, which technologies will guarantee flexibility, and what proportion each of them will have.
Regarding the operation, the Royal Decree-Law establishes that renewables can be compensated for being active to control voltage , in addition to adjusting the new regulations so they can act with grid forming to stabilize the system.
Furthermore, the penalty procedure (which will include legal penalties) for failure to comply with voltage controls is updated, a highly positive measure considering the unavailability and ineffectiveness of thermal power plants to regulate the system on the day of the blackout.
