On 6 April 2019, Royal Decree 244/2019 entered into force, which governs the administrative, technical and economic conditions of energy auto-consumption in Spain (“RD 244/2019”).
It contains regulatory implementation required by Royal Decree-Law 15/2018 of October 2018, absolutely necessary to meet the objectives set by Spain in its recently defined Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate (Plan Nacional Integrado de Energía y Clima or PNIEC 2021-2030) in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (known as SDGs or Global Goals) set at the Paris summit of 2015 and implemented in January of 2016.
The new RD 244/2019 implements and governs the principles of RD-Law 15/2018 on (i) the right to auto-consumption of electricity without charges; (ii) the right to shared auto-consumption by several consumers; and (iii) the principle of administrative, technical and economic simplification, especially in low capacity power plants.
This is a new regulatory framework that lends legal security which, in turn, will most certainly revitalise the renewable energy sector:
New agents are now permitted to enter the sector, such as private consumers (residential, retail and industrial);
Surplus energy may now be injected into the network from plants with a capacity no greater than 100 kW which comes from a primary renewable source;
A voluntary system for the compensation of surplus energy is implemented by the commercialising companies with a limit of the value of the energy consumed by the user;
The surplus energy is exempt from any generation surcharge and its value shall not be subject to the Tax on the Production of Electricity (Impuesto sobre el Valor de la Producción de Energía Eléctrica) (7%). VAT shall only be applicable on the amount of energy after compensation between the surplus energy and the energy consumed;
Power plants near consumers with any type of auto-consumption are permitted;
Collective auto-consumption of renewable energy is enabled (for ex. between communities of owners or industrial parks), where this shall be understood to be a group of consumers supplied, as per agreement, with electricity from nearby power plants;
On the other hand, RD 244/2019 simplifies administrative and technical requirements as it implements a system of permissions for access and connection to all of the auto-consumption power plants without surplus and, also, in plants with a surplus, when the plant does not have a capacity of over 15 kW and is located on developed urban land.
It also reduces the demands relative to those measurement or registration requirements for power generation given that it will not be obligatory to have a measurement device.
In addition, it simplifies the administrative steps for all those covered under the auto-consumption mode, where it shall be sufficient to communicate to the distribution company the existence of a prior access contract, or where the administration itself proceeds to register the plant in the auto-consumption registry (as opposed to the consumer).
For further information: Andoni Archanco