Spain’s new subsidy system cuts financial support for renewables
With the aim to curb the mounting costs of subsidies for clean energy plants, on June 6, Spain approved a clean energy bill that introduces an entirely new subsidy system.
The characteristics of the new subsidy system were presented by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism in a document that was published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) on June 20. The text highlights the reduction of renewable energy subsidies down to the basics and specifies that the total pot of incentives for 2014 will be seven million Euros.
According to the document, the financial support will go mainly to PV facilities and combined heat and power plants. On the other hand, the bioenergy and waste-to-energy sectors will have to deal with significant loses, which will directly affect their productivity.
In an interview with the online magazine ENDS Waste and Bioenergy, ADAP, the Spanish association for environmental impact-free use of manure, which represents businesses producing energy primarily from pig manure, stated the gravity of the situation: “The new terms condemn pig waste treatment plants to economic bankruptcy and disappearance.”
In its online article, ENDS Waste and Bioenergy further highlighted that “around 2 000 pig farmers would be directly affected, leaving them with no alternative but for their pig wastes to be sent to landfill.”
Read the full text of the decree in Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) (in Spanish).
Source: ENDS Waste and Bioenergy
