Solar has once again been the driving force behind the growth of Spain’s green energy sector so far this year, with renewables generation between January and September up 16.3% on the same period of 2019. New figures from Red Eléctrica de España show that PV’s generation was 67.5% higher year-on-year, followed by hydropower, which was up 41.6%


Thanks to good weather and the deployment of additional capacity, renewables made up 43.1% of total national production as of September, 7.5 percentage points more than in 2019. However, despite more than 650MW of new generation installed so far this year, wind power posted a slight decrease in generation.


Back in Front

The figures show solar in Spain has maintained its growth from last year, when the sector posted a record amount of installed capacity* meaning for the first time since 2008, the country was the leading PV market in Europe.

The increase in renewables generation meant Spain was able to reduce its amount of CO2 equivalent emissions by 28.7% in the first nine months of 2020.


Future Growth

The growth of green energy projects in Spain can be expected to continue after the PSOE government earlier this year signed into law a raft of measures designed to remove barriers to the large-scale deployment of renewables. The Spanish Photovoltaic Union said this positions the solar sector as an engine for economic growth and the creation of positions in Spain's struggling job market.



*4,201MW of ground-mounted arrays and 459MW of distributed projects

Data supplied by https://ieefa.org/