Spain is set to fall short of its renewable energy goals for 2010 unless there is a shakeup of the sector to stimulate the growth of solar power and biomass generation, renewable energy lobby group APPA said on Tuesday. The government s energy strategy, in line with the European Union s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, states that by 2010 it should be tapping renewable sources for 12 percent of the country s primary energy, 30 percent of its electricity and almost 6 percent of its transport fuel.

"That plan will not be met. Perhaps the wind energy and biofuel targets will be met, but no other technology is going to reach its target," Jose Maria Gonzalez Velez, APPA s chairman, told a news conference. The government s plan for 2010 includes building new small hydroelectric plants, quadrupling biomass generation, doubling wind energy capacity and rapid growth of solar power, which is negligible at the moment.

Spain is under more pressure than most industrialised countries to increase renewable power sources because its carbon dioxide emissions have risen more than 50 percent since 1990. Under the Kyoto agreement to curb global warming it is committed to limiting that rise to 15 percent, but is struggling to square that with relentlessly rising demand for energy, driven by population growth and increasing living standards.

APPA is pushing for clear legislation for the power market so that investors and backers of renewable generation projects can calculate the return they will earn. "We are not going to find financing if there are not clear rules," Gonzalez Velez said.

APPA says changes in the way the daily power pool works, imposed earlier this year, and plans to unwind the premium renewable generators receive, have undermined the sector. A government proposal earlier this month to oblige distributors to buy power for the regulated market at quarterly auctions would effectively exclude independent renewable power generators, the APPA chairman said.

"Wind and solar generation are difficult enough to forecast for the next day, let alone three months ahead ... This would expel us from the market." The proposal would suit only big power companies like Endesa and Iberdrola who have renewable and conventional power to draw on and can switch between the two, using renewable when available and topping up with coal or gas when it is not, he said.

The government has published a draft proposal on quarterly auctions but now has to work out details jointly with Portugal. Since July this year, spot and futures for Iberia trade in a joint market, the Mibel.
(Planet Ark, 29/11/2006)