660M€ from Europe for self-consumption and renewable energies
Financing for self-consumption and renewable energies
Within the framework of the Recovery Plan, a call for proposals has been launched with 660 million euros, extendable up to 1,320 million euros, to finance large-scale self-consumption, behind-the-meter storage and renewable energies.
The aid, divided into 6 programmes, will be coordinated by the IDAE, but distributed by the autonomous communities and cities in independent calls.
Incentive programmes for self-consumption and renewable energies
In June 2021, the Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), approved Royal Decree 477/2021 granting the autonomous communities and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla 660 million euros for the implementation of various incentive programmes linked to self-consumption and storage, with renewable energy sources, as well as the implementation of renewable thermal systems in the residential sector.
These are the first large-scale lines specifically aimed at self-consumption and storage that have been designed to support storage in existing self-consumption facilities, facilities that incorporate new self-consumption capacity, small-scale photovoltaic solar power (whose capacity is equal to or less than 1 MW), as well as for the rest of renewable generation facilities (photovoltaic self-consumption with a capacity greater than 1 MW or wind self-consumption).
These programmes, which will be financed within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, will be coordinated by the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) through the Consultative Commission for Energy Saving and Efficiency. However, the autonomous communities and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla will be responsible for allocating the corresponding credits to the final recipients, as determined in their respective calls for proposals.
The aid was created in response to the urgency of reactivating the economy after the pandemic situation suffered by Covid-19, as well as to meet the objectives of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan in terms of the deployment and integration of renewable energies and storage with renewable energy sources, thereby contributing to the “decarbonisation” of different sectors of the economy, as well as to the achievement of the objectives set by the PNIEC 2021-2030 and the Energy Storage Strategy.
The government estimates that the actions derived from this aid will contribute to the creation of more than 25,000 jobs, as well as a GDP growth of more than 1.7 million for each million of aid granted and a reduction in CO2 emissions of more than one million tonnes per year.
Six self-consumption incentive programmes
This aid package is articulated through six incentive programmes for self-consumption, storage and thermal uses of renewable energies: the first three are aimed at specific economic sectors and the last three are mainly aimed at homes:
- Implementation of self-consumption installations, with renewable energy sources, in the services sector, with or without storage.
- Implementation of self-consumption installations, with renewable energy sources, in other productive sectors of the economy, with or without storage.
- Incorporation of storage in self-consumption installations, with renewable energy sources, already existing in the service sector and other productive sectors.
- Implementation of self-consumption installations, with renewable energy sources, in the residential sector, public administrations and the third sector, with or without storage.
- Incorporation of storage in self-consumption installations, with renewable energy sources, already existing in the residential sector, public administrations and the third sector.
- Implementation of thermal renewable energy installations in the residential sector.
Eligible costs will be those related to investment in equipment and materials, civil works, electromechanical, hydraulic, control and auxiliary equipment, management and monitoring systems, the drafting of projects, technical reports and project management, among other actions.
These incentive programmes will be in force until 31 December 2023. Applications for the corresponding aid may be submitted from the time and in the manner established by the autonomous communities and cities in their respective calls for applications, which must be made within a maximum period of three months from the entry into force of Royal Decree 477/2021.
Below, you can consult the data relating to the call for applications made in each Autonomous Community and/or Autonomous City for incentive programmes 1 to 5.
Our Innovation Consultancy department will monitor the active calls for proposals in order to provide further information on those of special interest to our clients.
An endowment of 660M€ expandable
The 660 million initially budgeted will be increased, as the initial amounts allocated to each territory are executed, up to a total programme of 1,320 million. However, the autonomous communities and cities will have to commit 80% of the initial budget during the first year or they will have to repay half of the amount not committed within 15 months of the publication of this Royal Decree in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
As for the territorial distribution of the budget, it has been carried out as agreed at the Sectoral Conferences on Energy held on 11 January and 12 May 2021 and has been calculated taking into account the weighting of the Gross Value Added (GVA) services, industrial GVA and GVA agriculture, livestock, forestry and fisheries.
Thus, the autonomous communities with the largest budget allocations are Catalonia and Andalusia with 114.9M€ and 104.8M€ respectively.
As for the territories that are strategic for the activity of our company, the Community of Madrid has 91.2M€ of budget for this programme, Castilla La Mancha with 30.9M€, the Valencian Community has received 67.3M€ and Galicia 39.1M€.
Recovery Plan, the framework for financing aid
Within the ten lever policies included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, two of the thirty lines of action are component 7: Deployment and integration of renewable energies; and component 8: Electricity infrastructures, promotion of smart grids and deployment of flexibility and storage.
In this sense, the programme has earmarked 550 million euros to finance component 7 (renewable self-consumption and thermal renewables) while 110 million euros have been allocated to component 8 (behind-the-meter storage).
