See the wholesale price of light to zero euros or even negative has ceased to be an anecdote for become a daily phenomenon In Spain. Symptom that renewables dominate the energy mix, is a growing obstacle to the profitability of electricity, but is still cheap energy. And as such, it is the best opportunity to reindustrialize Spain in a long time.
Why it happens. “Zero or negative prices are a symptom of abundance of renewable resources to generate electricity,” analyst Pedro Cantuel, who works in Ignis’s energy management, explains to Xataka.
In the central hours of the day, when photovoltaic production is massive, renewables flood the network with a practically null marginal cost, which collapses prices in the wholesale market.
The time to reindustrialize. The abundance of cheap energy puts Spain in a competitive advantage position against its European neighbors. If Spain can offer clean energy to a very low cost, it becomes a magnet for industries that devour electricity, such as data centers, metallurgy or new green chemical industry.
“In the European context, I think this can happen, since Spain could offer more competitive electricity than some of its neighbors,” explains Sergio Fernández Munguía, engineer of the renewable sector and author of Windletter. “In a global context, industrial electricity in Spain is still expensive because the invoice includes many other items beyond the cost of electricity.”
Who has to adapt to who. The industrial model of the twentieth century was based on a premise: the energy was available 24/7 at a more or less stable cost. The renewables have broken this scheme: their production is intermittent. The traditional solution is to store that energy with batteries or pumping centrals, but the high cost of these facilities has dragged their deployment.
Fernando Rodríguez, an industrial engineer of the energy sector, believes that the true revolution is not only to attract the usual industries, but to create those of tomorrow. The solution, according to Rodríguez, is that the industry adapts to energy until there is economic storage, and not vice versa: “The industry of the future will have to work with greater inventories, as was the case before the imposition of the imposition of the Just in time“
Flexible and modular manufacturing. The idea is to design industrial processes that can operate in full load when energy is almost free and reduce its activity or stop when it is expensive, without losing efficiency. It is already happening in adaptable industries such as recycling, large -scale 3D printing or desalination, which can program their consumption peaks for maximum solar generation hours.
Concrete cases? In the United States, the Alcoa Warrick aluminum giant already adjusts its production to the available renewable generation. In Germany, the School of Engineers of Munich and Linde have designed an ammonia plant that works both 100% and 10% of its capacity, adapting to the production of Hydrogen Grandolytic.
The industry will be where renewables are. Rodríguez believes that an industrial relocation will be necessary, and gives as an example the failure of the German “electric highways, a project to carry wind energy from the north to the industrial south that will end up costing more than 140,000 million euros.
“Industrial companies must relocate near the new centers of gravity of electric production,” he explains. In Spain, this means taking factories to areas with more sun and wind, creating development poles in places that until now were not industrial foci.
If energy is free, who will build the central? The cheap energy avalanche has an inevitable counterpart that puts the entire system at risk. If prices are zero, producers’ income are also.
“Negative or zero prices discourage new investments,” confirms Sergio Fernández. “Especially in photovoltaic, those who are making numbers for new plants will see that their expected income in the market is lower than a few years ago and, therefore, also their profitability.”
A nipe castle. This problem not only affects future renewable plants, but also the support that guarantees that we have light when there is no sun or wind: combined gas cycles. “As the price of the wholesale market falls,” says Fernando Rodríguez, “the growing opportunity cost will leave investments to generation, transport, distribution and marketing without investors and without financing.”
The long -term danger is evident: a total break in the investment that leads us to an obsolete and unable to meet future demand. Without a robust system, there is no possible competitive economy. To take advantage of the industrial opportunity, Spain has to strengthen its nipe castle, and it is not enough to touch the prices artificially.
The attack plan. The first bottleneck is the electricity bill. Although energy in the wholesale market is cheap, the invoice is still expensive. For Pedro Cantuel, the solution goes through a “drastic reduction in the final invoice eliminating taxes, bringing system charges to the general state budgets and reduce regulated costs.”
The second problem is oversupply. How is demand increased? Cantuel proposes to “encourage electrification to replace the consumption of winter gas with electricity.” And at an industrial level, support great consumers “with the same mechanisms that our German or French competitors have, facilitating the connection of new demand to the network.
Spain before its historical opportunity. A turning point that can allow the country to reindustrialize sustainably and become an energy power in Europe. But time runs, and it is essential to “create a national long -term plan that provides stability and certainty to the sector,” claims Cantuel, who defines as a priority “set clear rules for storage and new vectors, such as hydrogen.”
The relationship between electric and the government is enquisted by the 7% tax on the generation. Consumers complain that the distribution toll “far exceeds real network costs.” Defining the rules of a competitive New Spain requires a country plan that puts all interested parties to row in the same direction. Without an ambitious and coordinated plan, today’s abundance could become the precariousness of tomorrow.
In Xataka | The light price is again negative: it is a sign that the system needs a redesign
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