Spain announces 3 GW renewables auction

The Spanish government has announced plans to hold a new renewable energy project auction with a capacity of up to 3 GW, in 2017.

The announcement came from Energy Minister Alvaro Nadal on 14 December as he addressed the nation’s parliament.

Nadal said that the 3 GW auction is required to guarantee Spain meeting its binding European Union target for 2020, ordering that 20 per cent of final energy consumption be sourced from renewable sources.

The Energy Ministry has sent the proposal for the competitive tender to the nation’s regulator, which will hold a public consultation until 20 January.

Detailed rules and start dates will be outlined in a later resolution, the Ministry said.

Spain’s second clean energy tender – the country’s first auction took place last January – will see technologies compete with each other to secure as much as €176 million in annual support.

The successful projects will be required to start generating power by the end of 2019 as their output will be needed to meet Spain's target for 20 per cent renewable energy in final energy consumption by 2020.

The share of renewable energy sources in mainland Spain’s power mix was 40.8 per cent in 2016, up from 36.9 per cent a year ago, recent figures show.

Recent figures show that the share of renewable energy sources in mainland Spain’s power mix was 40.8 per cent in 2016.

According to reports, Spain sourced 19.3 per cent of its energy from wind and 14.6 per cent from hydro-power, just above coal-fired plants which continued to decline in 2016.