The Government will begin in October of last year that large companies, already forced to carry out energy audits or have energy management systems, prepare and publish their own plans to contribute to energy savings. However, three months later, the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has regretted that her department has not received a single document.
These planes would be uploaded on an electronic platform enabled by Transición Ecológica and would be publicly accessible. The companies could also report every six months on any progress in the implementation of the respective plans.
“There was no news regarding the elements of compliance with the More Energy Security Plan (+SE) in that commitment of all the autonomous communities to adopt their own energy saving plans. There has not been either, and I regret this a little more, not there is an arrival of this type of aircraft from companies and, therefore, we cannot show it to you on the Ministry’s website,” Ribera stressed at the press conference on the balance of the third month of validity of the +SE Plan.
The +SE Plan includes 73 energy security measures grouped around six major objectives: savings and efficiency; transformation of the energy system; extension of protection to citizens, especially the vulnerable; fiscal measures; industry transformation thanks to renewable energy or hydrogen, and solidarity with the rest of the European countries.
On the other hand, Ribera has affirmed that his department will arrive in time to process all the Environmental Impact Declarations (DIA) so that the promoters of promoters of renewable projects demonstrate that they have favorable permits before January 25 and thus be granted the access the connection node that was awarded in the auction held in 2020 and thus not lose thousands of ‘green’ megawatts. Ecological Transition manages the process for projects of more than 50 megawatts (MW), while the autonomous communities are in charge when the capacity is lower.
“The teams have been working at a very intense pace for months, it is nothing recent. This allows final resolutions to begin to be finalized in a very significant volume. The expectation is that the Environmental Impact Statements that correspond to the Government of the Nation , whose milestone is January 25, are 100% resolved,” he stated.
For his part, Ribera has also said that the “vast majority” of the autonomous communities are in a position to comply with their own. “We are concerned that some, few but some, are concerned about whether or not they will be able to before the date,” he pointed out. In total, in early January, the Association of Renewable Energy Companies (APPA) estimated that they could lose the rights between 70 and 80 gigawatts (GW) renewable.
Two million customers in the TUR
Ribera has updated the data on customers covered by the Gas Last Resort Tariff (TUR), supervised by the Government, and has signed that there are already two million customers after more than 100,000 new contracts have been registered in December. In addition, around 2,000 communities of owners with a centralized gas boiler -of a total of 1.7 million- have become complicated by the neighborhood TUR, according to Ribera, who has assessed the improvement experienced by the customer service of the marketers.
The massive flight of customers to the TUR has occurred after the sharp rise in prices in the free market and after the Government has extended the limit of 15% increase in gas prices in each quarterly review until October 1, this year.
The TUR rate is only offered by four marketers: Regulated Marketer, Gas&Power, from the Naturgy Group; Energía XXI Reference Marketer, of the Endesa Group; Curenergia, from the Iberdrola Group, and Baser, from Total Energies.
Regarding the evolution of energy consumption, between August 1 and December 31, 2022, the demand for gas fell by 21%, without considering exports, which increased to 23% when taking into account the balance importer of the preceding five years. The demand for electricity fell by 7.5%.
According to the Government, Spain is acting “in solidarity” with the rest of the European Union (EU), making it easier to cover the energy demand of France and Portugal, mainly. Since August 1, electricity exports to the French country, which has a very relevant part of its inoperative nuclear park, totaled 6.7 terawatt hours (TWh), compared to average imports of 2.1 TWh in the same period of the last five years. On the other hand, in the case of Portugal, whose hydroelectric generation is greatly diminished by the drought, exports multiplied by six, reaching 2.5 TWh.
