Fuente: Financial Times
The dusty terrain has been levelled by tractors and rammed with ranks of metal rods. They will soon support thousands of solar panels, rotated by mini-motors being screwed on by construction workers in 35C heat.
“Setting up a solar plant is ultimately like building a factory in the countryside,” says Miguel de la Rosa, an engineering chief for project owner Zelestra, as cable reels and crates of electrical gear imported from China sit in the dirt, ready for connection to the power grid early next year.
The project in Belinchón, a municipality 50km south of Madrid, is another tract of sun-baked Spain now blanketed by rectangles of black silicon, but it may also be the final echo of an era of breakneck growth.
Photovoltaic cells have been the building blocks of a solar power boom spurred by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose support for renewables, combined with Spain’s abundant sunshine, has driven a wave of construction. Since he took power in 2018, energy developers have built solar parks, proved that power generation had attractive returns and pulled in capital from yield-hungry investors.
In 2023 and 2024, Spain added more solar power capacity than any other European country except Germany, whose economy is more than twice its size. Aggressive bidding between competitors in the M&A market drove prices for existing projects ever higher.
At some times in spring, as much as 60 per cent of Spain’s electricity comes from the sun. That has enabled Spain to slash its use of gas and coal-fired power stations. Consumers have reaped the rewards, as cheap electricity frees the country from the angst elsewhere in Europe over utility bills.
Sánchez calls his country a “global benchmark” in the transition to greener, carbon-free energy as Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, bears the brunt of climate change. But the sunlit uplands of solar have begun to overheat.
Spain has built so much solar capacity that at certain times of day it produces far more electricity than it needs. Prices have plunged as a result, dragging down owners’ profits with them. Over the past year, “day ahead” wholesale electricity prices were zero or even negative 10 per cent of the time, according to data from grid operator Red Eléctrica. In May, they were at zero or below for one-third of the entire month.
Several power producers, including Rolwind, Grenergy, Sonnedix and Zelestra, are now switching their attention to batteries. Their bet is that charging them during solar hours and discharging them in the evening will do two things: lift daytime prices off the floor and give them more electricity to sell profitably at peak hours.
Leer el artículo completo aquí: https://www.ft.com/content/089487d5-dee0-4c38-b423-ce6802f1059d
