The future of energy is distributed generation
Earlier this month, the European Commission sent a letter to the Spanish energy ministry (link in Spanish) demanding an explanation (link in Spanish) for the myriad red tape, barriers and taxes to discourage electricity self-consumption, which are not only against European law, but also go against all common sense in a country with as much sunshine as Spain.
The disincentive to self-generation of electricity in Spain is a clear case of prevarication: an arbitrary administrative or judicial decision in the knowledge that such a resolution is unfair. When Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he won’t get rid of a sunshine tax because if he did it would mean an end to €162 million year in taxes (link in Spanish) he is actually admitting that he imposed the tax contrary to European legislation, which unfairly and arbitrarily plunders an activity that is beneficial to the environment and to people’s pockets.
That European countries with much fewer days of sunshine than Spain are awash with solar panels while here, installing a solar roof and a battery means dealing with a legislative, regulatory and fiscal nightmare is so absurd, that the politicians responsible should all be put under investigation. It is high time to dismantle framework designed discourage self-generation and self-consumption, which has developed in an impressive way in many countries and is subject to enormous economies of scale.
In the United States, Google’s Project Sunroof, which will soon be available in Spain, has analyzed sixty million buildings in fifty states and found that four out of five homes have potential for solar powered electricity generation. It is possible that in our country, with high population density in its cities, the potential would be lower; the point is that such an analysis needs to be carried out in Spain now. Swanson’s law means solar panels are cheaper and cheaper, batteries are improving by the month, and the development of new materials such as solar tiles created by Tesla, available on the market from April, makes renewable energy production more efficient and less intrusive. What sense does it make to continue opposing distributed generation when it is increasingly clear way that it is the energy of the future?
(En español, aquí)
