Comments on: Spain Gets Reported To European Parliament By 100+ Spanish Bodies

By: Ross

Ross — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Their economy is in deep trouble due to a property bubble bursting and they’ve shocking levels of youth unemployment.

This is a case where positive outside interference from the EU could help them get back on track. More solidarity is also needed to help them fix their screwed up economy.

By: Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 08:52:00 +0000

Hi all

I’m currently living in Spain. Most of RE advocates agree the change of government (about Nov 2011) was key to this withdrawal of support to RE. The ‘Popular Party’, now ruling, has always criticized support to renewables.

Despite the financial crisis, political reasons have been even more strong. You know, there are two big parties, PSOE and PP, if PSOE is advocate for something, then PP opposes to it.

Furthermore, utilities in Spain are a big lobby, Economy Minister is a former member of one of them and almost all Ministers have shares in any of the three major utilities. And even more, many of former members of government are now working for these companies.

A few months before elections, utilities began a very intense campaign in the medias asking to next government to withdraw support to RE -they proposed to shut down many of solar projects-. One of the main supporters to this campaign was Iberdrola, which also operates in the US promoting renewable energy projects.

BTW, next week, government will release new measures for the electric sector, and RE sector is expecting a further reduction of incentives.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:01:00 +0000

Yeah, that’s one of the real shockers. Has to have been utility driven.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 22:00:00 +0000

Across the board cuts. From what I read. (No care to protect the solar industry or commitments from those.)

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:20:00 +0000

Does anyone know why there was such as significant back step with Spain’s support for solar? I know that Spain’s economy was very badly hurt by the 2008 financial meltdown. Was the government cutting everything they could find to cut in response to budget problems or was it due to/partially due to pushback by fossil fuel interests?

By: JamesWimberley

JamesWimberley — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:53:00 +0000

My personal beef with Spanish solar anti-policy is the blocking of the implementation decree on net metering (google “real decreto balance neto”), probably at the instigation of incumbent utilities. Spain gets 50% more sun than Germany. Solar PV would be economic on millions of rooftops without subsidy, provided there’s an effective right to sell surplus current to the grid – even at a moderate discount. It’s a policy to prevent job creation.