The use of sunlight for the generation of electricity is increasing in Spain at a more than remarkable rate in recent years, especially since the disastrous ‘sun tax’ was repealed in 2018 (imposed in 2015 by the government of the PP chaired by Mariano Rajoy).
The installation of photovoltaic panels reached a historical record in Spain in 2021, with an increase of 1,203 megawatts (MW) in equipment covered by the self-consumption system, according to data from the Spanish Photovoltaic Union; a figure that represents a growth in this section of 101.8% compared to 2020.
In the photovoltaic sector as a whole, Spain went from having 10,285.5 MW of installed power in 2020 to 13,104.9 MW at the end of 2021, according to data from the 2022 Photovoltaic Barometer report published this summer by the Observatory of Renewable Energies of the European Union (EurObserv’ER, public-private consortium supported by the European Commission).
On the other hand, Spain was in 2021 (and is also on track to be in 2022) the country in the European Union with the highest growth in the generation of photovoltaic solar energy. As this independent technical report shows, Spain went from 15,675 terawatt hours (TWh) generated with solar panels in 2020 to 21,582 TWh in 2021.
One of the easily observable data in the new Eurobserv-er report is that the electrical use of solar energy in Spain has a lot of room for growth, especially if the current figures for installed power and production are compared with those of countries such as Germany , with less surface area available for the installation of solar panels and fewer hours of sunshine than Spain.
The Photovoltaic Barometer shows, in this sense (see graph at the top), that the photovoltaic installations in operation in Germany generated more than double the electricity in 2021 than the homonymous ones in service in Spain.
In addition, the annual growth of photovoltaic solar energy installations (counted by the net increase in installed power) continues to be greater in countries such as Germany, Poland and the Netherlands than in Spain. Thus, the EurObserv_ER report shows that in 2021 solar panels with a total power of 5,015 MW were installed in Germany, while in Spain 2,820.5 MW were added to this type of installation.
If the figures for installed photovoltaic power are compared to the population, Spain also has many countries ahead. Specifically, there are 10 countries in the European Union with more solar panels per inhabitant than Spain, according to data from the Renewable Energy Observatory.
