Spain turns its back on coal

Today, "it is cheaper to produce with renewable energies than with coal," environmental lawyer Ana Barreira, director of the International Institute of Law and Environment, told AFP.

It estimates that all of the Spanish power stations could be closed in 2025.

A deadline due solely to the decisions of the owner companies because in Spain, unlike France or Germany, the government has never set a binding closing date.

These eight factories, out of fifteen still in operation, represented a cumulative power of 5,16 gigawatts, according to the NGO platform "Un futuro sin carbon" (A future without coal).

Their closure will halve Spain's coal-fired energy production capacity, at 4,7 gigawatts according to these NGOs.

Mainly located in the northwest of Spain (provinces of Galicia, Asturias, Leon), as well as in Teruel (northeast) and in the province of Cordoba (south), they belong to the Spanish groups Naturgy, Iberdrola and Viesgo, to the Hispanic-Italian Endesa (owned by Enel), who all confirmed to AFP that their operations would stop.

One of the Iberdrola plants has not yet received government decommissioning authorization but will cease to operate, keeping only a supply of emergency coal.

The fate of coal-fired power plants had long been decided by their owners: the cessation of operations on June 30 corresponded to the end of the transition period granted to these factories to comply with the European directive on industrial emissions.

Inevitable

However, these energy groups "have not made the necessary investments" to continue to exploit them, a deliberate choice, explained to AFP Tatiana Nuño of Greenpeace.

"These decisions respond to the logic of the market for electric companies", for which these plants "were no longer profitable", she explains, stressing that "the majority" of these factories have already produced almost no electricity since many months for this reason.

These plants "no longer participated in the energy price market because they are much more expensive" than other sources of energy, confirms a spokesperson for Endesa.

The end of these factories seemed inevitable since the closure of the last coal mines at the end of 2018. It has been accelerated by the evolution of energy prices.

In 2019, coal represented only 5% of the total electricity consumed against 25% in 2007, according to the operator of the electrical network Red Electrica.

But Spain is still far from fulfilling its renewable energy commitments: only 17,4% of the total energy produced came from renewable sources in 2018 (latest data available from Eurostat), while the target set with Brussels is 20% in 2020.

Spain had nevertheless been one of the pioneers of green energies in the 2000s, but their meteoric development was slowed down sharply by the 2008 crisis.

After several years of slump, where the land of the sun was notably left behind by Germany in terms of photovoltaic power, investor appetite has picked up since 2018, thanks to the increased profitability of renewables, with gigantic projects of photovoltaic parks.

Same thing in wind power, strong point of the kingdom, fifth country in the world in terms of installed capacity of wind turbines. In 2019 according to the European lobby WindEurope, a quarter of the funding for new installations in Europe concerned Spain.

Spanish energy multinationals are also getting involved, like Iberdrola, which invests heavily in renewables even if fossil fuel-based production still accounts for two-thirds of its turnover.

It remains to measure the social impact of the farewell to coal. The workers' commissions union estimates that 4.000 jobs (including subcontractors) could be lost when all the plants are closed.

The companies ensure, they work on concerted solutions, including reallocations to other sites and highlight the jobs needed for future dismantling.