For the first time in history, in 2023, renewable energy in Spain has exceeded 50% of annual generation. The installed capacity of the generating park in Spain has increased by 5.2%, ending 2023 with 125,620 MW. The installed renewable capacity in the national electricity system has increased by 6.3 GW, which has allowed reaching a percentage of installed capacity from renewable generation sources of 61.3% of the total installed capacity.
The end of 2022 was conditioned by the war in Ukraine, strong inflation and saving measures that caused demand to be on a downward path. This trend continued in 2023, even more so, accentuated by the fact that the demand for electric energy in Spain showed a decrease of 2.3% compared to the previous year. The demand for electricity in Spain reached a total of 244 TWh, the lowest value since 2007. But not only has demand suffered a decline, but electricity generation in 2023 has experienced a decline of 3.5% compared to the previous year, after two consecutive years of increases with a growth of 3.4% in 2021 and 6.3% in 2022.
But today’s analysis will focus on solar energy, in fact, the installed capacity of solar photovoltaic has increased by 28% during 2023, adding 5,594 new MW to the Spanish generation park, the highest figure since records began. Thus, this technology already has 25,549 MW in service and occupies 20.3% of the total structure of the Spanish generation park. With this year-on-year increase, our country is the second with the highest installed solar capacity (both thermal and photovoltaic) of the ENTSO-E countries. Surprisingly, as can be seen in the following infographic, the European country with the highest installed renewable capacity is Germany.
In the following table we can see the growth of wind and solar power compared to the autonomous communities of the country. The largest increase has come from solar energy.
The installed renewable capacity in the national electricity system has increased by 6.3 GW, which has allowed reaching a percentage of installed capacity from renewable generation sources of 61.3% of the total installed capacity.
In terms of the generation balance by type of energy, renewable generation in the national electricity system in 2023 has increased by 15.1%, thus registering the historical maximum production with 134,321 GWh. This increase has taken place as a consequence, above all, of the greater hydraulic and solar photovoltaic production, which have grown by 41.1% and 33.8%, respectively. During the 2023 financial year, the share of renewable production in the national mix has been the majority for the first time in history with a share of 50.3% compared to the 42.2% it reached in 2022.
Clearly, the renewable power installed in Spain is reaching a point where at certain times, the system is oversized, and therefore, is leading to renewable electricity prices of 0 €/MWh in the daily market. In the following image you can see the daily market price for the first half of 2024.
In the following image taken from the public data of the OMIE as of June 24, 2024, we can see the daily marginal price of the Iberian electricity market, where 541.6 GWh were mobilized between Spain and Portugal combined. In the case of Spain, the arithmetic average of marginal prices has been €41.15/MWh. However, in the central hours of the day, between 12:00 and 18:00, the cost was less than €5/MWh.
So, when you install a photovoltaic park, what can you do to increase the economic performance of the park? In the first instance, it could be said that, if an energy purchase agreement is established outside the OMIE market, it is not a problem that would have to be faced.
But what happens if the photovoltaic (PV) plant wants to sell to the market?
The alternative will be to optimize the hours when electricity is most expensive in order to increase their income. To do this, the park owner will need to increase production during the hours of the beginning of the day and at dusk.
When the sun rises and sets over the horizon, the sun has a smaller angle and, therefore, it is the critical point for the operation of the photovoltaic park. If you wonder why, it is simple: when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, during the central hours, the radiation received by the panels is high and the photovoltaic panels will generate according to their maximum capacity. However, when the position of the sun is lower, the challenges of maintaining maximum production increase.
In this situation, Sener has a tool that optimizes the orientation of the panels with a 3D approach and manages to maximize production results. All this contextualization is associated with two analyses that I am going to carry out on how the installation of a photovoltaic park can be optimized to obtain the lowest levelized cost of electricity.
The image shows a commercial plant originally operating with 2D or flat backtracking. The undulations of the terrain generate abundant shadows between rows, producing electrical losses. These losses evolve throughout the morning depending on the operating conditions at each instant in time. As you can see in the previous image, by implementing 3D backtracking, the shadow generated on the solar panels is minimized, which leads to a substantial increase in electrical production.
ACCURATE SIMULATIONS
The following graphs show a minute-by-minute comparison between real life and the ORUGA® Performance Model simulation for a whole
day in two different commercial plants (left: Spain, right: Brazil).
It is clearly seen that, even in cloudy periods, the difference between the plant measurement and the simulation is very small. This makes it possible to accurately predict the behavior of the plant with and without 3D backtracking:
Generally, these things do not come out of nowhere. The ORUGA® Performance Model software is based on lessons learned from tower concentration projects such as Gemasolar (Spain, 19.9 MW) and Noor III (Morocco, 150 MW), which implement advanced control and process technologies proprietary to Sener.
With this we see that once a sector such as solar photovoltaic has been stabilized, it is necessary to have specialized tools to be able to capture more value and increase the profitability of the assets. In this case, a team from Sener’s Aerospace division has been responsible for developing the software necessary to simulate the behavior of this type of plants, as well as testing and implementing the control logic of the solar field of tower plants, a major technical challenge within a technology one order of magnitude more complex than any photovoltaic plant. From this knowledge, macerated over the years, an extremely precise software was developed that simulated SENSOL® tower concentration plants, which would eventually become the precursor to the ORUGA® that I have highlighted during the analysis. As decarbonisation gradually materialises, renewable energy will become more prominent as a fundamental piece to allow human beings to live a more sustainable life in harmony with the environment. Therefore, in the coming years the installation of photovoltaic solar energy in Spain will continue at a rate similar to that of 2023, but it will be increasingly critical to actively manage the parks in the portfolio to optimise performance. Because, in a world like the current one with so many uncertainties, one thing is certain, as that famous song said, “Hey, chipirón, todos los días sale el sol”.
