Heather Galloway
SPAIN’S wind power is officially back after breaking all records in October.
Rajoy’s PP administration may have shunted wind power into the doldrums, but this squeaky clean source of energy is back on the map with the amount of electricity generated by turbines in October breaking all records for that month and contributing to a 5.3% PVPC saving for the consumer, the Business Windpower Association told the Olive Press.
Adding to this gale of good news, wind went from covering 12.2 % of total demand on the Iberian Peninsula in September to 20.6% in October, contributing to a 8.7% drop in the price of the so-called ‘pool’ – the wholesale price of energy.
This surge has also meant that the monthly CO2 emissions from electricity on the Peninsula dropped to the lowest for the month of October since 2010.
“Wind is once again the main source of energy during various quarters,” said Spain’s Windpower Monthly correspondent, Michael McGovern, who adds that Spain was the only country in the world to have wind as its main source of power in 2013, just before Rajoy’s moratorium took effect.
Meanwhile, new wind infrastructure in the Canary Islands has boosted production to record-breaking levels since it was installed in 2017. But, according to the Business Windpower Association, structural measures need to be implemented across Spain if the wind market is to help keep electricity prices down.
“We need to plan beyond 2020,” Piluca Núnez, director of communications told the Olive Press. “We need to establish an auction schedule that will mean the installation each year of a significant amount of new megawatts (MW) which will bring us closer to the 2013 and 2015 renewable energy goals and the reduction of CO2 emissions. We also need to establish a fiscal framework which will allow for investment in the decarbonisation of the energy sector beyond electricity.”
