Representatives of Catalan industry and the political and social world have asked during the Industry and Energy Forum for policies for access to renewable energy that allow the industrial fabric of Catalonia to maintain and increase its competitiveness in the ecological transition process. The participants in the Forum, gathered in Barcelona, ??have agreed that access to this type of energy is one of the key elements in the investment decision. As Joan Roget, vice president of Foment del Treball, highlighted, “without the guarantee of the availability of energy that comes from renewable sources, there will be no industrial plants with new technologies and those that exist will be closed.”
The former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, José Montilla, highlighted that the industry needs “guaranteed energy at a competitive price.” The former Minister of Industry participated with the former president, Artur Mas, in a conversation in which they both agreed that things could have been done better. “We have not done the transition to clean energy well, although we were pioneers. Catalonia has not done its homework,” said Mas.
To face this situation, both former presidents emphasized that there was room for improvement if, as Montilla highlighted, “brave decisions are made by the governments” and, as Mas demanded, there is the necessary will: “Catalonia has all the assets and attributes to be attractive: there is industrial tradition, capacity for innovation in energy management, strategic location, but do we have the will?” According to data presented at FIE2023 by Opina 360, only 10.1% of the energy consumed by industry in Catalonia originates from renewable sources.
Among the conclusions of the conference, which took place in the DFactory building of the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium (CZFB), it was highlighted that the industrial sector of Catalonia is facing a decline in industrial production, an aspect on which they agreed those responsible for the energy area of ??Foment del Treball and PIMEC, Virginia Guinda and Joan Vila. Guinda recalled that industrial production in energy-intensive sectors has fallen by 18% in Spain between January and June and by 22% in Europe, while Vila warned that “the only solution we have is to increase the productivity of the industry, and a “A very important part of the increase in this productivity is done precisely through energy.” Along these lines, Ignasi Cañagueral, president of the AEQT, reaffirmed the need to advance in energy efficiency and electrification of processes: “We need electrical energy, not only to replace what we have now, but to electrify more; With the difficulty of deploying renewables “in the garden”, the need for high voltage lines is obvious.”
José Agustín Lalaguna, CEO of Levitec, highlighted that “in the last four years there has been a brutal reduction in competitiveness”, energy has gone from being a commodity to becoming a strategic issue, because the industry cannot have volatility in your income statement; “It is not only a question of price, but also of guaranteeing access to energy.”
Regarding the role of administrations in the process of industrial energy transition, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, highlighted that “Spain today is the most competitive country in terms of renewable energies” and that this process of ecological transition is “an extraordinary opportunity for Spain and for Europe.” For his part, Pere Condom-Vilà, head of the Strategic Analysis Area of ??the Generalitat of Catalonia, stated that “the ecological transition is an opportunity to generate a new business and energy context.” The participants insisted on the need for a regulatory environment that, as Professor Julio Tejedor claims, guarantees the trilemma “security, accessibility and sustainability in a way compatible with the new scenario of generation and distributed consumption, making self-consumption possible at all levels, especially in the industrial sector and in closed networks.”
For Tejedor, we must also keep in mind that “not all territories are the same and that electricity generation can make some more competitive than others.” The search for synergies between territories was also the subject of analysis, raising the role of power lines as a tool that can contribute to accelerating the energy transition. For Pere Palacín, professor at IQS, “today there is no other way to transport the necessary energy other than the lines: energy bridges between nearby communities such as Aragón Catalonia and Valencia are a real and European solution for electrification with renewables” .
