The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITECO) recently announced that it has officially approved the construction of nearly 25GW of solar photovoltaic capacity in Spain, marking a solid step forward in the country's renewable energy sector.
The total installed capacity of these approved solar photovoltaic projects is 24870MW, scattered across 239 different projects. It is worth noting that MITECO has issued Administrative Construction Authorization (AAC) for 283 renewable energy generation projects, with solar energy projects accounting for the vast majority of contracted capacity, up to 90%.
MITECO is mainly responsible for reviewing projects with a scale exceeding 50MW or spanning multiple autonomous regions. At present, 428 renewable energy projects have initiated the AAC process, which means that 66% of the projects have successfully obtained authorization from MITECO, laying a solid foundation for subsequent construction and operation.
According to Royal Decree No. 23/2020, all projects approved by AAC have obtained grid connection rights between December 31, 2017 and June 25, 2020, with the approval deadline set for July 25, 2024. In order to ensure that authorization is not lost, all projects approved by AAC will be put into use within three years, which will greatly promote Spain's ambitious goal of achieving a photovoltaic installed capacity of 76GW by 2030.
Although not all projects will ultimately succeed, the advancement of this batch of projects will undoubtedly inject strong momentum into the new installed capacity of large-scale ground photovoltaics in Spain. Last year, Spain's newly installed ground-based photovoltaic capacity reached 5.6GW.
It is expected that by the end of 2023, Spain's installed photovoltaic capacity will exceed 25.5GW. However, to achieve the goals set in the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), an additional 50GW of installed capacity will be required in the coming years.
According to MITECO's estimation, all renewable energy projects approved this month will require an investment of over 17 billion euros (approximately 18.4 billion US dollars), and solar photovoltaic power generation alone will create over 260000 jobs, bringing significant positive impacts to Spain's economic and social development.
Earlier this week, MITECO also released guidelines for renewable energy and energy storage manufacturing plans. The plan will provide 750 million euros in funding through the Spanish Recovery and Recovery Program, aimed at incentivizing the production of equipment and components for technologies such as solar panels, batteries, and electrolyzers, further promoting innovation and development in Spain's renewable energy sector.
However, it is worth noting that this is not the first time MITECO has approved solar photovoltaic projects in bulk. Last year, 132 projects (with a total capacity of nearly 25GW) received favorable environmental decisions. These projects were also connected to the grid between December 31, 2017 and June 25, 2020, and the deadline for environmental approval is January 25, 2023.
However, shortly after the announcement, in January 2023, some industry insiders began to worry about the shortage of design, procurement, and construction workers, which could affect the smooth completion of these projects. Therefore, while accelerating its photovoltaic layout, Spain also needs to pay attention to and solve the talent bottleneck problem in the industrial chain.