Present state and perspectives of variable renewable energies in Spain

Abstract

In accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement (2015) and the more recent European Union Winter Package of November 2016, the European nations have committed to drastically cut CO2 emissions during the next decades, especially in the power sector. To this end, Spain as well as many other European countries are initiating plans for a large deployment of variable renewable energy sources (VRES), especially motivated by the huge lowering in prices of solar and wind installations. In the first part of this work, a detailed analysis of the current Spanish electricity mix is carried out, especially of the present generation by VRES. To this end, we present hourly and daily fan charts, for the different days of the week as well as months or seasons of the year. These studies show that the current power system is quite varied and presents a large installed capacity in relation to peak demand. Other aspects, that will surely assist the transition to lower emission targets are the following: the recent adjudication of 9000 MW of VRES, which will be operational within the next 2–3 years; a large overcapacity of Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) plants, which could be used during the transition as backup plants; and the relatively large hydro-pump potential for the storage of possible VRES surpluses. Finally, the possibility of decommissioning several nuclear plants in a few years is also discussed.