Assessment of the new access and connection to distribution networks regulation in the Spanish electricity system

Abstract

La aprobación del pack ““Clean Energy for all Europeans” en 2019, hizo que todos los estados miembros de la unión europea desarrollaran un Plan Nacional de Energía y Clima que especificara las medidas que serían implementadas de manera individual para contribuir a los objetivos Europeos de política energética. En el caso de España, el PNIEC especifica un aumento de generación eléctrica renovable de 60GW respecto a los niveles del año 2020. En el año 2020, el gobierno español decidió modificar la legislación y regulación que aplicaba al proceso de acceso y conexión, junto a acciones a realizar después de la obtención de los permisos, para asegurar la firmeza y consistencia de los proyectos. Esta tesis ha confirmado la evolución entre la anterior y nueva regulación de acceso y conexión, basándose en un conjunto de atributos que miden la contribución a la integración de renovables y la eficiencia del proceso. El análisis cuantitativo ha confirmado la existencia de las ineficiencias detectadas por el gobierno español que incitaron a la modificación de la regulación, como son la concentración de más del 80% de las solicitudes en la red de transporte, la falta de transparencia y el bajo nivel de puestas en servicio de instalaciones con permisos del 25%. Sin embargo, también ha detectado que, aplicando esta nueva regulación a los actuales niveles de permisos de acceso concedidos, en el peor de los casos, se instalarán 70GW de potencia renovable, asegurando la consecución de los objetivos del PNIEC de 60GW. Por otro lado, esta evolución podría ser aún más eficiente y contribuir a alcanzar los objetivos del año 2050 de 100% producción eléctrica renovable. La tesis ha demostrado que mejores prácticas internacionales como son los estimadores de costes de conexión, simplificación y reducción de procesos administrativos y sus costes, obligación de compartir información de la red de “aguas arriba” y la implantación de accesos no firmes, proporcionarían un proceso de acceso y conexión más eficiente, complementando la metodología actual.

The approval of the “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package in 2019, made all European Member States develop and implement important measures in their energy policies in order to contribute to a clean energy transition for the whole continent, setting challenging targets for year 2030, considering renewable energies integration as an important objective for a greener future. For this reason, each country developed an integrated National Energy and Climate Plan in which they specified the measures that would be implemented to individually contribute to European targets. In the case of Spain, the already approved PNIEC plan specifies all the national targets that must be achieved before 2030. Among them, an increase of renewable electricity generation power of 60GW with respect to 2020 levels must be installed by private companies, achieving an overall installed capacity of almost 120GW in Spanish system. To host this amount of renewable power, it is necessary to develop and invest in transmission and distribution networks, but it is also necessary to implement an access and connection regulation that ensures a simple and efficient process and the subsequent commissioning of installations. In 2020, Spanish government decided to modify the legislation and regulation that applied to the Access and Connection procedure, together with the actions to be done after obtaining the permissions in order to ensure the consistency and firmness of projects that applied to be connected to the network and homogenize the applications towards distribution and transmission networks in a single methodology. This decision was the result of the analysis of applications that showed a speculative behavior among promoters of renewable installations that did not end in the commissioning of installations, the real objective of PNIEC targets, and eliminate the asymmetries of the application processes. This thesis has confirmed the evolution from previous, prior to 2020 reform, to new Access and Connection regulation considering a set of regulatory attributes defined to measure the contribution to renewable integration and the efficiency of the process. The quantitative analysis has confirmed the existence of the inefficiencies detected by Spanish government that led to the change of regulation such as application concentration in transmission network of more than 80%, lack of transparency and low rate of commissioning of installations with permissions granted, less than 25%. However, it has also detected that applying this new regulation to the current levels of already granted Access and Connection permissions, will allow, in the worst case, to install approximately 70GW of renewable power, a figure that ensures reaching PNIEC targets of increasing renewable installed capacity of 60GW. However, this evolution could be even more efficient and contribute to reach 2050 long-term objective of 100% renewable energy in Spanish generation mix. The thesis has proved that international best practices such as implementing Connection charges estimators, simplification and reduction of administrative procedures and costs, forcing to share upstream network influence, and allowing to grant non-firm access permissions, would provide a more efficient Access and Connection procedure, complementing the recently approved methodology.