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Shock for Spain’s solar industry, pv magazine told

Spain's government wants to pass drastic retroactive and future cuts as well as ceilings for photovoltaics (PV) feed-in tariffs, pv magazine has learnt. This is the result of a two-day round of talks between government and industry representatives.

A retroactive quantity cap for the production from existing PV installations could be applied. Image: Uli Carthäuser/Pixelio.

Consequently, things could turn out to be even worse than already feared for Spain's PV market: with a retroactive quantity cap for the production from existing PV installations, the Zapatero government wants to balance its deficit on the market for electricity. This was confirmed after a meeting on Wednesday between the country’s industry minister Miguel Sebastián and branch associations.

As Javier Breva – negotiator for the Association of Renewable Energies (Appa) – informed pv magazine, only 1,250 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt of installed output are to be remunerated each year in the future; and 1,644 kilowatt-hours in the case of tracking systems – regardless of whether they are uni- or biaxial. In addition, the current market price of 3.7 cent per kilowatt-hour is to be paid.
 This regulation also applies to older plants under the existing laws RD 661/2007 and RD 1578/2008.

Things will be particularly critical for new outdoor plants because they will receive 65 percent less in the future, so that the subsidy in this segment will decline to 9.08 cent per kilowatt-hour. In the case of rooftop installations starting from 20 kilowatts the cut amounts to a total of 25 percent, while small plants of up to 20 kilowatts come away relatively unscathed with a cut of five percent.

Thus relations between the ministry for industry and the branch associations have probably been undermined once and for all. “These negotiations were simply a farce,” is how Breva criticized the result and announced that action would be brought before the European Court of Justice. No further meetings between the Ministry and the associations are planned; the final version of the law is supposed to be on the table in one week.