The ministry says there is undue hoarding of connection permits, not saturation of the electricity grid.

BarcelonaThe Spanish government does not believe there is a saturation problem in the high-voltage electricity transmission network, which is managed by Red Eléctrica, but rather an "undue monopolization" of connection requests, according to sources within the Spanish executive branch. This Friday, Red Eléctrica (REE) published its capacity maps, which indicate that there is 25% network connection availability. According to the company, which belongs to the Redeia group, the transmission network currently has capacity for new demand at 25% of its nodes, which can be granted either through the general priority criteria or via a tender process. Red Eléctrica has indicated that access and connection permits have been granted on the transmission network alone for 129 gigawatts (GW) of wind and photovoltaic installations, 16 GW of storage installations, and 19 GW of demand-side installations.

Of these latter projects, since 2022, when the current planning was approved, 11.8 GW of capacity has been granted for new demand, none of which has yet been commissioned. They have had five years since receiving their permits. Thus, the volume of permitted demand, pending connection only to the transmission network, would represent a 25% increase in the country's current demand.

REE, in its capacity as system operator, has published for the first time the access capacities for connecting demand to the nodes of the transmission network, calculated according to the technical criteria established by the detailed specifications approved by the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) in its resolution of December 1. This information, which will be updated monthly, will be applicable to all assessments of demand access capacity to the transmission network that must be carried out and will be updated as the process progresses regarding reference values ​​and as regulations on robustness requirements evolve, as indicated by the CN. The publication today of the electricity transmission network capacity map demonstrates that Spain is a major investment hub, thanks to the policies of recent years: we have clean and competitive energy, a sound economy with projected growth, and we have talent and social peace. Sources from the Ministry for Ecological Transition have indicated that the data demonstrates that Spain's investment attractiveness is such that since 2020, access and connection rights to the transmission and distribution networks have been granted equivalent to doubling national demand in just a few years. According to these sources, this large volume of requests has limited the available network capacity for connecting new projects, and even "speculative and unacceptable hoarding of access rights has been detected."

Anti-hoarding measures

Therefore, the ministry is taking action against this hoarding of access rights with measures such as setting their expiration after five years or introducing the obligation to contribute 10% of the cost of the necessary network upgrades within one year of receiving the access right, these ministry sources indicate. They also announced that new regulations are being finalized to free up network capacity and ensure that firm requests, for example, for new housing, can be connected to the grid and implemented. In fact, in the coming weeks the ministry will present an initial package to regulate the technical connection of demands using power electronics, to facilitate compliance with the CNMC's dynamic criteria, prevent them from destroying access capacity in their surrounding area, and also unlock significant capacity.