Norvento puts forward additional measures to favour the development of industrial photovoltaic self-consumption

• Last week, the Spanish government published the draft Royal Decree that will develop the regulations for self-consumption in our country.
  
• The text represents an important step forward for the development of photovoltaic self-consumption in Spain.
  
• Electricity consumption by industry accounts for 42% of the global total, and its contribution to the energy transition is key.

Madrid, 5^th February 2019.- Norvento, a Spanish renewable technology company highly specialised in industrial self-consumption and distributed generation, has positively assessed the Spanish Royal Decree draft that will govern the administrative, technical and economic conditions of self-consumption, while proposing some additional measures to boost the adoption of this type of installation in the residential and especially in the industrial sector. 

The regulation, which will develop the regulations of Spanish Royal Decree-Law 15/2018, was made public on 29 th January by the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition, and will be open to allegations until 8 th February. Norvento recognises that the draft includes measures demanded by the renewable sector that will represent a positive step forward for self-consumption. If this regulation is confirmed, it would simplify the administrative and connection procedures, would specify the mechanisms for compensating surpluses, and would expand the existing forms of self-consumption. Thus, the possibility of developing both individual and collective self-consumption installations would become effective. 

However, although the text establishes surplus compensation, this only applies to installations under 100kW. This limit is an obstacle for self-consumption installations in the industrial sector, which will suffer a greater administrative burden if they wish to be able to monetise surpluses. The industrial sector accounts for around 42% of electricity consumption (according to data from the International Energy Agency). Therefore, enabling this sector to adopt self-consumption generation systems will be key to the energy transition. 

Norvento proposes the following modifications to the draft Royal Decree-Law in order to get the most out of the draft regulatory development of self-consumption: 

• Extension of the simplified compensation system to installations over 100kW: This limit is an obstacle for self-consumption installations in the industrial sector, which in the event of wanting to monetise their surpluses would be subject to a greater administrative burden. There are no objective reasons to support the limitation of net billing to installations of up to 100kW, and in fact there are currently countries such as Brazil that increased the limit of their net balancing programme in 2017 to installations of up to 5MW.
  
• Guarantee of a simple consultation and connection point application procedure that encourages industry to join the self-consumption with surplus modality: Under the current proposal, anyone with an installation of more than 15kW who wishes to feed surpluses into the grid has to apply for a connection point, a procedure that entails certain complications. This model will encourage self-consumers to opt for the inclusion of an anti-spill system and renounce the injection of potential surpluses into the grid, for the sake of a quicker and simpler processing of their projects. For society, this means forgoing existing renewable production, which will therefore no longer contribute to emission reduction targets.
  
• Extension of the deadline for simplified energy offsetting: The draft provides for a one-month deadline for simplified energy offsetting. In order to give greater flexibility to businesses with cyclical or seasonal load and to encourage their adoption of renewable generation, Norvento proposes to extend this timeframe to a 3-month period. 

Luis Jiménez Gutiérrez, head of Norvento’s Solar Photovoltaic Business Unit, pointed out that “to take advantage of the full potential of industrial self-consumption, the new regulations should further facilitate the creation of installations over 100kW by removing power limits for the compensation of surpluses and ensuring the simplification of grid connection procedures“.

About Norvento

Norventois a Spanish renewable technologies company with a comprehensive capacity for action. Based in Lugo (Galicia), the company is 100% Spanish-owned and has been operating in the market for more than 35 years. The activities of Norvento cover manufacturing technology, design, promotion, building, and operation of centralised generated renewable energy facilities (mainly wind farms), generation for distributed generation for industry, and ad hoc energy engineering solutions for customers.

With an active presence in five international markets (the United Kingdom, Brazil, the United States, Poland and Italy), Norvento currently has a total of 750 MW in operation, construction and development, both in Spain and in other markets.