Spain's plan to hold a 3GW renewables auction next year received a lukewarm reaction from industry bodies, with calls for further details and greater visibility over the country's long-term ambitions.
The plan was revealed by energy minister Álvaro Nadal, who said the auction "will have to be resolved before the end of the first half of 2017". The capacity will be allocated under competitive criteria designed to be technology neutral.
Nadal will call for deposits to be lodged by developers "to establish additional controls to ensure the completion of projects which are awarded" - addressing criticisms directed at Spain's last auction which awarded 700MW early this year, mostly to wind.
Measures to ensure awarded projects come to fruition were welcomed by Spanish wind energy association AEE, which otherwise reserved judgement and demanded that the 2017 process supports domestic industry and technology.
"They announced that there will be some control mechanisms, which is something that the first auction lacked completely," said AEE communications director Sonia Franco.
However, Franco also expressed concerns that little detail of the plan has so far emerged and that there is a lack of a long-term renewable energy strategy from the government, given its commitment to 2020 targets under EU legislation that is expected to require about 9GW of new renewable capacity.
"This may change, but they have only talked about an isolated auction so far. It would help to have a calendar showing the expectation of the government in terms of renewables for the next three years."
Giles Dickson, CEO of industry body WindEurope, criticised the technology-neutral design of the auction. He said: "They are the only country in Europe that is making the mistake of doing a technology-neutral auction.
"The best way to deliver an energy transition is to have a clear plan which gives industry visibility about what sort of volumes you are going to want to develop for the different technologies over a period of time. A technology-neutral auction goes in completely the opposite direction. That is a major problem," Dickson added.
Despite the concerns, the plan at least marks a return to gigawatt-scale renewables planning for a nation that was an early pacesetter in wind and solar, before in 2013 introducing retroactive reforms that undercut already-operating projects and saw new development effectively stall for several years.
Noting that Spain achieved more than 41% of its total electricity production from renewables so far this year, Nadal said that Spain is well ahead of its EU goal of achieving a 20% share of renewable energy in total national energy consumption by 2020. In the last year available, 2014, the share of renewables was 17.3%.
Spain ended 2015 with about 6.5GW of solar capacity and 23GW of wind.
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