Spain may introduce additional measures to support self-consumption

A few days after the Spanish government introduced new rules for self-consumption and canceled the solar tax, the Spanish Parliament is now reviewing new provisions to reduce the time frame of the registration for a project under the self-consumption regime, while also simplifying bureaucratic procedures.

The president of the Congress of Deputies, Ana Pastor, along with the delegation of the regional Parliament of Murcia, which supported of the legislative initiative.

Image: Asamblea Regional de Murcia

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From pv magazine España

Spain’s Parliament started to review additional provisions to support self-consumption from renewable energy sources yesterday, just two days after the Spanish government introduced new rules to regulate self-consumption and canceled its notorious solar tax.

The new rules, which are based on a law of the Spanish region of Murcia and entered into force in 2015, propose that all consumers who wish to set up a power generation unit for self-consumption, or bring an existing renewable energy generator under the self-consumption regime, should inform the corresponding autonomous community.

In addition, households will have to apply to the energy distribution companies in their area for grid-connection, even if they do not intend to feed energy into the transportation and distribution networks.

For their part, companies will have to respond and facilitate the connection within a period of 15 days. They must also submit information on the number of contracts subscribed under this regime to the National Commission of Markets and Competition. This includes the amount of contracted power, the installed capacity  in the internal network, the hourly demand and the monthly net balance.

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This same information will be used to define the price of energy consumed, with the exception of free market contracts, where the price will be freely agreed upon between the parties.

This legislative initiative, which was rejected in 2016, has been submitted by the regional deputies Alfonso Martínez (PSOE), Óscar Urralburu (Podemos) and Miguel Sánchez (Ciudadanos), and has received the backing of all the parties represented in the Lower House, except the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which has abstained.

The Popular Party (PP) has announced it will submit amendments, however, while Unidos Podemos has requested its processing under the urgency procedure.

Despite the solar tax and an unfavorable regulatory framework, self-consumption was one of the main market drivers in the Spanish solar sector last year, when newly installed PV capacity totaled 135 MW. This means that, with these new improvements, this segment may see much stronger growth in 2018 and the coming years.

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