Solar Hit ~7% Of Spain’s Electricity This Summer

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Originally published on Sustainnovate.

Summer Heatwave in Spain On July 1, 2004, Spain (roughly the right-most three-quarters of the peninsula) and Portugal (left-hand quarter) were in the midst of a blistering heat wave that cost several people their lives. When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this image (13:35 UTC, or 2:35 p.m. local time in Lisbon, Portugal) cool, sheltering clouds hugged only the northern coastline, while the rest of the country baked in the Sun. The image shown here is land surface temperature observations collected by MODIS that scientists have color-coded in shades of pink (coldest temperatures) to blackish-red (highest temperatures). Deep reds dominate the country, especially around the central part of the border between the two countries, where land surface temperatures reach a scorching 59 degrees Celsius (138 degrees Fahrenheit). According to news reports, air temperatures were above 40 degrees Celsius (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit), and energy demand for air conditioning and refrigeration had caused power blackouts in places. A natural-color version of this image is available on the MODIS Rapid Response System Website. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres and Ana Pinheiro, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

Solar energy accounted for just 6.77% of Spain’s electricity generation mix during the months of June, July, and August of this year, according to the latest data from Red Eléctrica de España (REE). This figure includes both solar photovoltaic (PV) generation (3.87%) and solar thermal generation (2.9%).

Those figures are down notably from where they stood last year (in 2014, they were 8.23%), largely as a result of recent and upcoming “anti-solar” legislative actions.

Altogether, the period of January through August 2015 saw the country’s electricity generation mix broken down thusly: nuclear power took a 21.6% share of the market; wind energy took a 19.6% share; coal-fired plants tools a 19.1% share; hydroelectric took a 12.3% share; co-generation technologies took a 10.1% share; combined-cycle gas facilities took a 9.7% share; solar PV took a 3.3% share; solar thermal took a 2.5% share; and the other 1.8% share was made up mostly of other thermal generation means.

As referenced above, the proposed “sun tax” in Spain will (if approved) means that solar PV system owners will be taxed (to a great degree) for the electricity produced even if it isn’t fed into the grid. They would be taxed for self-production and self-consumption, in other words. Unsurprisingly, this proposal has generated a fair amount of backlash, and also put a damper on distributed solar growth.

Notably, the opposition parties in the country have come out against the proposal.

Image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (some rights reserved)

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