Joan Groizard, general director of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), one of the key people in the team of Teresa Ribera, Minister for Ecological Transition, is already working on updating the National Energy and Climate Plan, which it will set the new objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the new climate action initiatives. He is the person who holds the key to future offshore wind farms.
When will Spain have offshore wind farms in the Mediterranean?
Offshore wind energy is one of the key commitments in the energy transition. But we have a relevant process ahead. The depth of the sea water both in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain is very great at a very short distance from the coast. Here, offshore wind has to be floating, which means that we need a much more modern and innovative technology that is not yet as consolidated as onshore wind.
One of the areas chosen or pre-selected to host it is located in front of the Costa Brava…
We are now finalizing the maritime spatial planning plans, which are the equivalent of urban planning, but at sea. They also define the areas for the development of offshore wind power.
Will 100% of these pre-selected areas be for wind farms?
No, it means that wind farms can be installed in those areas. The Government will launch a series of tenders to find out which promoters want to implement floating wind farms in those areas, with a series of conditions.
Who will build the offshore wind farms?
The regulations that will regulate this are being developed. The idea is to specify it with a system of contests, of auctions. We are not talking about a purely economic auction. We will look for projects that are properly integrated into the environment both environmentally and socially. It will be necessary to speak with that environment so that the configuration of the park is as compatible as possible with the uses that exist in that area. It is key that the project integrates socially and environmentally in that environment.
The Generalitat proposes citizen participation in the financing of these projects.
We have some examples whose success has been based on this, that citizens have had the possibility of investing financially in the park. This is the case of the city of Copenhagen, which, although it has a string of wind turbines in front of it and in a very visible way, this project was very welcome. There is a landscape impact but the citizens see that their investment is paying off. The ideal thing would be to transfer that same concept here.
Does the fact that an offshore wind farm is visible harm tourism? Or does the fact of being visible have a pedagogical and educational value?
The debate on the landscape impact is well known. But, sometimes, we dare to give an opinion on behalf of the tourist without asking him. And it has been seen that many tourists are put off by knowing that the energy at the destination is coal or nuclear and, on the contrary, they value that the energy is clean and renewable. The reality is that, at the distances that the wind farms are installed, most of the days we will not see them. It is true that the landscape is, and architects and landscape designers know this better than anyone, a certain gaze of the human eye. We already know that Don Quixote fought against the windmills and it seems to us that today it is a characteristic landscape of Castilla-La Mancha. Also the lighthouses are something spectacular that add to the landscape and yet it is a human intervention. If designed properly the projects can add to the landscape; it is about looking for an adequate integration in each in each site.
When will the first offshore wind farms be in operation?
We are talking about the end of the decade. As I said, this year the regulatory system to define the contests will be activated, but these are engineering and construction projects that take a long time. Important constructions are needed; They are long-term contracts. We will see them at the end of this decade.
The new European regulation establishes a fast track for environmental impact assessments of renewable projects. There is some concern about the damage that can be caused to biodiversity.
Faced with the climate crisis and the invasion of Ukraine, we need to rapidly reduce this foreign energy dependency and the best way to do it structurally is from renewable sources. It is in this context that this regulation is approved, which is equivalent to a decree law and is automatically applied and mandatory to accelerate the deployment of renewables. This is an emergency measure, so it is limited in time, only until the end of 2024.
How does that translate in Spain?
In a faster and shorter process, but I must clarify that it does not affect protected areas or the Nature Network. What is being proposed is a more agile procedure for large strategic renewable projects, but I insist leaving protected projects and the sea on the sidelines. But that doesn’t mean that the developer is going to go to a site and just start building. You have to present all the documentation to the administration and comply with all applicable regulations. And if any significant impact is detected, the Administration can force, and will do so, to have to go through all the ordinary procedures.
But each department of the administration then imposes its criteria booklet…
We are trying to find good practices so that whoever wants to develop renewables well knows how to do it well and, therefore, does not encounter surprises. Renewables, contrary to other developments, if done well, are perfectly compatible with respect for biodiversity. Renewable sources may be more favorable for biodiversity than certain agricultural monocultures. They can be perfectly compatible with agricultural and livestock activity.
Are the forecasts on the development of renewables contained in the National Energy and Climate Plan being fulfilled?
We are having historical records for the installation of renewables in our country. The data on self-consumption are especially positive; each year the rate of installation of self-consumption in our country is multiplied by two. In 2022 alone, 10 times more self-consumption will have been installed than existed in 2018. The rate at which it multiplies each year is spectacular.
Is the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) being complied with?
There are a lot of parks in the pipeline. We had applications to install more than 150 gigawatts of renewables with permission to connect to the grid when we had 60 gigawatts scheduled.
Not all of them can be done. Sometimes they overlap, don’t they?
There is everything. Normally, of every 10 projects that begin to be processed, 2, 3 or 4 prosper; in the end 6 or 7 out of 10 fall.
Why?
Precisely because the environmental evaluation is resolved negatively and that project cannot go ahead. Additionally, we had detected that projects had been presented without a real interest in finalizing them and carrying them out, they simply sought to ‘sell paper’, sell rights expectations in some cases. These types of projects do not interest us and generate an understandable social alarm in the territory, and destroy the reputation of renewables against promoters who do do their job well. They have been forced to present documentation to move forward and in this way many have already “fallen”. And if at the end of this month of January they do not have a favorable environmental declaration, they will not be able to proceed.
The Catalan Government fears the impact of the new power lines that will come from Aragon…
Indeed, it will be necessary to analyze the impact of the projects that are being considered (from Aragon). A power line has an environmental impact and it will be necessary to analyze that it is viable and that it makes environmental sense. But the ideal, if we want to continue having energy supply, is to bet on the deployment of renewables. Infrastructures that have an unaffordable impact must be avoided; but we need an energy supply that is adequate.
The ecologists presented a complaint against the Energy and Climate Plan to the Supreme Court. They call for further reductions in greenhouse gases, more climate ambition from the Government
It is unfair and unheard of that the first government in Spain to receive a complaint for climate inaction is the government of which Teresa Ribera is vice president and minister for Ecological Transition, the first that managed to get the Courts to approve the first law on Climate Change in Spain. It is interesting that justice is interested in environmental rights that in Spain have been violated many times. Now, we also have to see where we started from and where we are only in these last four years.
Will the Pniec be reviewed, as requested by environmental groups?
The Climate Change Law effectively provides for always upward and never downward revisions; and we have already started that revision work. A public consultation was opened first. Two elements condition it. One is the review of the European objectives itself, the Fit for 55, that is, the reduction of emissions of 55% by 2030, which is more recent than the Pniec and requires updating it; and secondly, the situation of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which forces us to accelerate all renewable deployment.
Has the test of a winter without sufficient energy been passed?
The European response is being adequate. There has been a saving of natural gas in all the countries of Europe. This could have meant less economic activity, heating levels that have been lowered, but it is making it possible to save the winter. Beyond these conjunctural measures, we must speed up this structural response. We are seeing similar patterns in all European countries, and we see reductions in energy consumption. Savings in Spain have been reinforced since August when savings and efficiency measures (thermostat…) were implemented. In Spain, the reduction in natural gas consumption has been around 20%, and we see similar reductions in consumption in Germany, France and Italy.
The MidCat gas project has gone down in history, replaced by the MarBar hydrogen corridor. What role will hydrogen play? The hydrogen that will be transported from Barcelona to France, where will it be produced?
We are talking about green hydrogen, which is of renewable origin. It is an infrastructure that will be developed throughout the decade to transport hydrogen produced from renewable energy. A project that will also serve to develop Spanish technology associated with research and the hydrogen value chain. In other words, that electrolysers, compressors are designed and manufactured in Spain… In fact, many of the national and European aid programs that we are activating are more closely linked to that technological part, to promoting design and development in Spain of prototypes of trucks, buses, trains, tractors, electrolyzers or management systems for that hydrogen.
Can this conduit from Barcelona to France also carry gas?
What has been agreed is that it be for renewable hydrogen. It is true that the tube does not know where the hydrogen molecule comes from… It is a structure that will be prepared to conduct hydrogen. The approach at the European level is that it does not make sense to invest in infrastructures that prolong or lengthen the life of infrastructures to transport fossil fuels. It is true that at first the concern of central and northern Europe was to provide itself with gas, but the conclusion was reached that it does not make sense to carry out large works and invest billions in infrastructures that are going to become obsolete soon, but rather that what makes sense is to bet now on an infrastructure that transports only 100% renewable hydrogen.
In the future, what uses will hydrogen have? There is talk above all of using it in maritime and air transport…
Hydrogen cannot be for anything. In air conditioning, for example, biomass or electricity makes more sense. It makes sense in heavy transport, such as ships, planes or freight trucks, where the electric battery would not work due to the weights and tonnages; or in industries that need very high temperatures that today can only use natural gas and that will have to be replaced. But we don’t see it so much for light vehicles, that is, for cars, or for air conditioning, where we see that heat pumps or other technologies are more widely deployed today and make much more sense. It is very unlikely that hydrogen can be competitive in a hydrogen boiler at home or in a hydrogen engine so that our car can go to refuel.
Are cities betting on the electric car? It seems not.
Any change is complex; but today in Spain there are more charging points with public access than gas stations. For the number of electric vehicles that are circulating on our roads, there are charging points (electric stations and car parks). With the regulations that come into force this year 2023, car parks, from a certain number of spaces, must have at least one charging point for every 40 spaces; In other words, when we go to the supermarket, to an underground car park in the city or to a shopping center, and there is a car park, they have to offer us a charging point. It is established by the Technical Building Code, and refers to both parking lots and existing ones.
How do you assess the plans and projects of the Recovery Plan in Catalonia?
We see that whether we are talking about initiatives of an industrial nature (electric mobility, renewables) or in terms of energy communities, we receive many projects from Catalonia, which are usually resolved favorably because they are solvent projects.
Self-consumption is going like a shot…
Only with shared self-consumption over a distance of 500 meters, the electrical installation sector was already saturated looking for new professionals and giving waiting periods of months, in some cases almost a year. What we want is for generation to be as close as possible to consumption. In Spain, the vast majority of people live in apartment blocks and it is not always appropriate to put facilities. For self-consumption to be for 100% of society, and not just for those who have a single-family home, it is important to be able to share spaces. The fact that city councils can make public car parks, sports centers, schools or other public spaces available to put these renewable facilities from which families can benefit in a radius that is now extended to two kilometers is a very interesting option. This allows, for example, a sports center to use energy during the week and during the day, and on weekends or in summer to share that energy with the neighbors.