{"id":2022,"date":"2021-06-24T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fundacioncanal.com\/blog\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2025-09-04T07:27:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:27:33","slug":"self-supply-lets-go-up-to-the-roof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fundacioncanal.com\/blog\/en\/self-supply-lets-go-up-to-the-roof\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-supply. Let’s go up to the roof!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Estimated reading time: 4.52 minutes) <\/em>\u2013  Audio version of article available<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 3,000 hours of sunshine per\nyear is energy potential that should be used. Solar power is one of the aces up\nSpain’s sleeve to reduce foreign energy dependency (around 74% (INE (National Statistics Institute), 2019<\/a>)), to stop using fossil fuels that must be imported and that release\ngreenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, and to care for its\nbiodiversity and air quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with ground plants, self-supply\n“allows any individual or company to produce and consume their own\nelectricity by installing solar panels or other renewable-generation systems in\ntheir home, place of business, or neighbourhood<\/em> (IDAE (Institute for Energy\nDiversification and Savings), 2020<\/a>).\nThis is another tool available to industries, businesses, individuals, and\ncollectives like neighbourhoods, to make the most of the great solar capital\nafforded our country by its privileged geographical location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Royal Decree-Law 15\/2018 was\napproved (BOE (Official State Gazette), October\n2018<\/a>), on urgent measures for energy\ntransition and consumer protection, which eliminated the so-called “sun\ntax” (tolls on self-supplied power), the government, regulation after\nregulation, has been unblocking expansion of self-supply, approved in the\napplauded Royal Decree 244\/2019 (BOE (Official State Gazette), April\n2019<\/a>), and eliminating administrative\nhurdles that drew out the installation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aforementioned Royal Decree-Law\n15\/2018 established different self-supply modes: without excess and with\nexcess, which could either be compensated or not. In the former, there is only\none player: the consumer. Meanwhile, in the latter, there are two: the consumer\nand the producer. The former has anti-spillover systems to prevent energy that\nis produced but not consumed from being injected into the network and stored in\nbatteries. For installations with excess energy, meaning where leftover energy\nis injected into the network, that are under compensation models, the value of\nthis excess energy is offset on the bill at the end of the period, after\nregistration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-supply installations are\nindividual when there is one sole consumer associated with them. They are\ncollective when there are several consumers. This was one of this Royal\nDecree’s great milestones, acknowledging collective self-supply, which opened\nthe door to installations in neighbourhood associations and industrial parks.\nThese may be installations close to the point of consumption connected to the\nconsumers’ interior network, or installations close to the point of consumption\nthrough the network. This latter case refers to connection to low-voltage\nnetworks that depend on the same electric transformer or less than 500 metres\nfrom the consumer or networks located in the same cadastral reference as the\nconsumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the year 2020, 596 megawatts of\nsolar self-supply were installed in our country, a 30% increase in comparison\nwith 2019. Specifically, 56% of these 596 MW are in the industrial sector, 23%\nin the commercial sector, and 19% in the domestic sector (UNEF (Spanish Photovoltaic Union),\nJanuary 2021<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of profitability, the Asociaci\u00f3n\nde Agencias Espa\u00f1olas de Gesti\u00f3n de la Energ\u00eda<\/em> (Association of Spanish\nEnergy Management Agencies) offers model cases on its webpage for\ntechnical-economic study, organised by user type. There is also a calculator to\ndiscover, besides the power that needs to be installed in each case and the\nrooftop surface needed, possible energy and economic savings (Eneragen<\/a>). In any event, there are flexible financing options offered by\ndifferent retailers, which need not be the same as the installer companies,\nalthough they may be. The installer company must take care of registration and\nprocessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the financing\nsolutions offered by many retailers (for example, loans with savings management\npackages), many town halls provide reductions on council taxes and other taxes\nto those who self-supply in the home, in addition to the subsidies that each\nAutonomous Community has approved to encourage self-supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Professional Guide for\nProcessing Self-Supply Installations (IDAE (Institute for Energy\nDiversification and Savings), 2020<\/a>),\nyou can view very useful information on the processes that must be carried out\nwhen starting up an installation, both with Autonomous Communities and with\ndistributors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar self-supply is a mainstay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to meet our climate goals of keeping the planet’s average temperature increase below 1.5\u00baC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n