Advisory panel says Spain is at risk of missing its 2030 wind energy target

Author: Pietro Lombardi

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain must expand wind capacity at a much faster pace or risk missing its ambitious 2030 target, U.S. think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said in a report published on Wednesday.

Renewable energy is breaking records in the country, generating more than half of its electricity last year. The main source of energy was wind energy, accounting for almost a quarter of the electricity produced.

According to the Spanish wind lobby AEE, with around 30 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind capacity, Spain is the European leader, second only to Germany.

However, local opposition in some regions and licensing bottlenecks have weighed on the deployment of new wind farms.

According to the GEM report, approximately 1.7 GW of wind parks are currently under construction, which means that Spain is already halfway to achieving its end-of-decade target of 62 GW.

While a pipeline of around 40 GW should be more than enough to achieve this goal, the problem is the pace of implementation: over the next six years, this capacity will need to increase almost fivefold from around 1 GW added on average per year in 2019 to 2023, GEM said .

“As things currently stand, Spain is unlikely to meet its 2030 wind energy target,” said GEM researcher Gregor Clark, author of the report.

The Ministry of Energy declined to comment.

Addressing bottlenecks and rapidly deploying offshore wind farms will be key to achieving this goal, Clark added.

The country added only about 600 MW of capacity last year, compared with almost 1.7 GW in 2022, according to the AEE lobby, which is also calling for acceleration.

Spain is on track to strengthen its European leadership in utility-scale photovoltaic projects, according to a report by GEM, which monitors existing renewable energy projects, projects under construction and broader plans.

The report shows that the 7.8 GW of Spanish solar projects under construction represent more capacity than the next three European countries combined.

(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi; Editing by Hugh Lawson)