Generating success

Castilla-La Mancha has experienced a spectacular growth in the renewable energies sector since 2000. The amount of power sent to the national grid from renewable electric sources in Spain in general has doubled since that date, and has increased by three times in Castilla-La Mancha. The region was helped by its geographical situation, but also by our willingness to manage the natural resources we have and to make important investments in renewables. The region also has a strong awareness of environmental issues, and the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha has worked hard to bring its policies in line with the national and EU directives on reducing  dependency on fossil fuels, promoting renewable energies and efficiency in energy generation in order to promote the sustainable development of the European economy, society and environment in line with the Kyoto Protocol.

European governments all have the same goal – to achieve the targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol with regard to reducing greenhouse gases and reducing our dependency energy. This dependency is 56.2 per cent on average across the EU, some 85 per cent in Spain as a whole and 58.1 in Castilla-La Mancha.

The region’s efforts to reduce its energy requirements are shared among a number of bodies, but the most important is AGECAM, the regional energy agency of Castilla-La Mancha. We have drawn up our own regional legislation in this area in order to promote the regional development of energy policy, and to ensure that the region’s public is kept clearly informed about what we are doing and why. We also guarantee that the projects that we undertake in the sustainable energy field are completed on time and within budget.

The national legal framework for developing sustainable energy – as set out in the Renewable Energy Plan 2005-2010 – sets a target of 12.1 per cent of primary energy consumption to come from renewables by in 2010. In addition, the action plan for energy efficiency 2008-2012 calls for savings of 87.9 MTEP (million tons of oil equivalent), which equates to 60 per cent of the primary energy consumed in 2006, and a reduction of 238t of CO2 emissions. Finally, the Real Decreto 661/2007 regulating the production of electrical energy also sets targets for renewables.

In addition, the Castilla-La Mancha regional authorities have developed their own legal framework in order to promote further changes in electricity generation and consumption. The Law 1/2007 on Support for Renewable Energies and Promoting Energy Efficiency and Savings within Castilla-La Mancha regulates the procedures by which electrical energy facilities must operate, while Decreto 299/2003 regulates the conditions under which electric energy production from renewables is carried out and creates a record of all the regional facilities operating under this so-called special regime.

The long-term plan for sustainable energy production in the region is featured in the Strategy for Castilla-La Mancha’s Energy Development 2008-2012 (or EDECAM) report, which sets strategic aims for energy efficiency (reducing energy intensity by 1 per cent and limiting emissions of CO2) and for the transition to renewable energy sources (with the aim of producing 36.7 per cent of electric power, and satisfying 26 per cent of the region’s primary energy, with renewable energies, and replacing hydrocarbons by biofuels in transport). EDECAM also sets out the way in which energy produced in the region can be ‘exported’ to other regions, and seeks to help coordinate the work of the various companies operating in the renewable energy sector in the region.

Exporting energy is a key part of Castilla-La Mancha’s long-term programme. We already export large amounts of energy - 6.489 GWh were exported in 2006, some 34.6 per cent of the regional production of generated electric power, of which 30.9 per cent was generated by means of renewable energies (wind 18.9 per cent, biomass 0.8 per cent, hydro-electric 3.8  per cent and cogeneration 7.4 per cent). Castilla-La Mancha is also one of the best regions of Spain when it comes to the total amount of power sent to the grid from renewable energy sources.

In Castilla-La Mancha we believe that renewable energies are the way to a sustainable future, and we view them as both a challenge and an opportunity. But we believe that the consolidation, extension and future development of renewable energy in the region will be possible thanks to the economic support from the region and the continued improvements to the regional transport and supply infrastructure. The regional authorities have pledged to invest €860m between 2008-2013 in new infrastructure for gas, and €300m (between 2008-2016) in new infrastructure for renewable energies.

But we cannot act alone; we need to have cooperation from the national government – which shares our aims – and from other regional authorities not least to provide a consistent legal framework within which renewable energy projects can grow across the region and the country as a whole. We also need to ensure that we have the technological know-how to achieve our goals, that we have the right people in place to do the work and that we do not hamper the development of growth with red tape. At the same time as ensuring that whatever we do does not have a negative environmental impact, we also need to make sure we are doing all we can to promote investment in research and innovation in the fields of energy efficiency and the sustainable use of resources. Above all, perhaps, we need to work as hard as we can on cutting the cost of generating electricity from renewable sources, as this is the element most likely to stimulate further development in this area.

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