Protermosolar, the Spanish solar thermoelectric industry association, has been celebrating the fact that the Spanish Congress has overturned a new law which put the sector in danger. Parliament has listened to the sector's arguments and voted against the Senate’s shock repeal of Royal Decree 6/2009 at the beginning of October which would have had disastrous repercussions for the solar thermal electric generation (STEG) sector.
Although, the repeal would have initially cleared the way for developers to progress with their projects without having to wait for the publication of the registry – thereby resolving the current hiatus in the STEG sector – only 500 MW of new STEG projects would have benefited from the existing feed-in tariffs and funding for remaining projects under development (roughly 1,000 MW) would have dried up, said Protermosolar.
Projects previously covered by legislation (RD 661/2007) could have been exposed to loan cancellations and demands for immediate loan repayment, triggering financial losses in the region of €5 billion (US$7.4bn) for developers, suppliers and investors. In raw figures, Protermosolar estimates that this regulatory change would have threatened 300,000 jobs and €10 billion (US$15bn) in investments. Chairman of Protermosolar, Valeriano Ruiz declared that the rejection of the repeal is “a significant success after a lot of lobbying”, nevertheless he warns that the current hiatus will continue.
1,500 MW of STEG projects are currently under construction in Spain, most of which were already put on hold when RD 6/2009 was enacted back in May, and, to date, a total of 4,300 MW distributed across 100 projects have been presented for registration but have still not received approval. Ruiz is concerned about the effect these delays are having on the STEG sector. “We cannot let our guard down. We have won a small victory, but companies waiting for their projects to be approved are in the same position or even worse off because another week has gone by. The blockage is still in the same place and those who can remove this stop-gap remain the same. We need to urge the Ministry of Industry to take action,” he said.
For additional information:
