Laurence Dollimore
A SPANISH energy boss has vowed that Spain will become 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy.
Acciona director Miguel Ezpeleta said there is currently enough wind energy being generated to power 29 million Spanish homes every day.
He said: “The important thing is to predict and forecast what is going to happen.
“I think people are going to tell me we’re crazy but I’m pretty sure we’ll arrive at 100 per cent for one moment for sure.”
The firm said a new nighttime record was set in November last year when wind energy provided 70 per cent of the country’s energy.
Spain, which has no oil or natural gas deposits, is attempting to become energy independent.
Some 17.4% of its energy currently comes from renewables, just a few per cent below its 20% target by 2020, set by the EU.
Although great for the environment, critics have said the move to renewables has made energy more expensive, with some saying the price has increased by 60% over the last ten years.
Acciona said this can be tackled with proper management.
The director for the Asia-Pacific region, Javier Montes, said: “Properly managed, there should be no issues with that. The examples in Europe show that
“The one thing going in Spain’s favour is that the electrical system has been built with the goal of making it very reliable and able to take very heavy knocks with extreme weather events or major technical failures.”
Meanwhile the UK is set to fail to achieve its target of 15% renewables by 2020, likely undermining its reputation for climate change leadership.
I could hardly believe Javier Montes quote.
Almost every time it rains the power or water or both go off locally, not just in my house.
Spain could become energy independent and use 100% renewables by 2025 if the government decreed that all new buildings had to be energy self-sufficient and people with domestic or commercial PV installations, with enough battery storage for their own needs, could sell surplus power back into their local grid.
As PV panels are now beating grid parity with natural gas and approaching coal (2.99 cents a kilowatt-hour) the result will be utility islanding everywhere with no more need for national utility providers and their super expensive national network infrastructure with no risk of weather or disaster disrupting supply due to an exponential growth in local network redundancy.
The downside? Established utilities would promptly go bust as they can’t compete, so the Spanish government have done the absolute opposite of what will ultimately deliver cheap (almost free) green power to protect established interests.
But it can’t last. While Spain moves towards some of the world’s most expensive electricity the future is coming regardless of whether the utilities and their political lobbyists like it or not and one day soon the electorate will have their own lightbulb moment.
References;
“http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Power-Is-About-To-Get-MUCH-Cheaper.html”
“http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai”
“https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cheapest-solar-ever-austin-energy-gets-1.2-gigawatts-of-solar-bids-for-less”
“https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/the-price-of-solar-is-declining-to-unprecedented-lows/”