Spain's People's Party proposes fees for renewables permitting

Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP), a strong contender in the general election on July 23, has proposed to charge a fee for renewable energy permitting to finance administrative costs of the procedure as the projects move through the already strained bureaucracy.

The charge would be a “milestone fee” paid by project promoters and would help beef up administrative resources and ultimately, unblock bottlenecks in the bureaucracy, the PP said in its election manifesto. It did not say how much the fee would cost the promoters.

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The ministry for the ecological transition has hit back at the proposal, saying that such milestone fees already exist and are a normal part of the permitting procedure for renewables, Spanish news agency Europa Press has reported.

Promoters already pay for administrative services needed to process applications for consent, construction permits and plant operation licences. The amount is proportional to the project budget and could stand at around EUR 9,000 (USD 9,805) for a EUR-50-million project, the ministry told Europa Press.

Spain’s state and regional administrations have struggled in the past with processing an enormous number of applications for renewable energy permits within target dates, causing the tension of “will they or won’t they” and heightening the risks of project delays and lawsuits.

Elsewhere in the manifesto, the main opposition party proposed to extend the life of nuclear power plants in Spain, within the framework of European regulation and the green light from the Spanish nuclear safety council.

Other proposals for the renewables sector do not differ much from what the current Socialist party-led government is promoting. These include electrification and decarbonisation of the economy, the development of renewable energy storage, decarbonisation of the hard-to-electrify sectors through biogas, biomethane, eco-fuels and biomass and the development of green hydrogen on the back of Spain’s competitive advantage in renewable energies.

“We want to turn Spain into an energy superpower, capable of taking advantage of the enormous opportunities of renewable resources, which will make it possible to achieve a balanced energy mix and cheap energy for consumers and our companies,” the PP said.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.089)