The Climate Change Law excludes a fixed volume of renewable auctions each year

The Council of Ministers plans to approve today the draft Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition for referral to the Courts. The standard, whose ultimate goal is to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, lightens the objectives of the Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) and those initially proposed by the ministry on replacing combustion cars with electric ones.

The most notable change introduced in the proposal submitted to the Environmental Advisory Council or the CNMC refers to the auctions of renewable capacity, which the ministry always set at 3,000 MW per year. To avoid a rigidity that would have forced changes with the rank of law if in any exercise this power could not be reached, this fixed objective has been eliminated. The ministry thus includes the recommendation of the CNMC in its mandatory report that, by the way, the agency has not yet published. The planned change of the current auction mechanism is maintained, so that instead of auctioning the investment price, the production price will be auctioned and they will not be marginalist.

In addition to establishing climate neutrality in 2050, which will mean that 100% of electricity will be renewable. To this end, in 2030 the emissions of the Spanish economy as a whole must be reduced by at least 20% compared to 1990. The ministry headed by Teresa Ribera considers it a “coherent objective” with the tightening of EU objectives, which proposes in its draft climate regulation a cut in 2030 of between 50% and 55% of emissions compared to 1990 levels.

By the end of the next decade, at least 35% of final energy consumption must be of renewable origin. In the electricity system, renewables in 2030 must be at least 70% and efficiency measures must be translated into a reduction in emissions of 35%.

Given that transport is responsible for 27% of greenhouse gases and that, of these, a third is concentrated in large cities, the future law will force municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to establish low-emission zones before 2023. In addition, any measure that involves a setback in the emission-free zones already created (such as Madrid Central) must have a prior report from the autonomous communities or the State.

Petrol stations will be obliged to install at least one electric car fast charging point with a power exceeding 50 kW to those that sell more than five million litres of fuel per year. In the case of ports, a target of zero direct emissions is set for moored or anchored vessels.

The draft strengthens the control of the Government and the CNMC over the corporate operations of REE and Enagás. Also on the financial leverage of regulated companies with the aim of guaranteeing supply.

CARS AND VANS

New passenger cars and light commercial vehicles sold in Spain must be zero grams of CO2 per kilometer, no later than 2040, according to the draft Climate Change Law. This objective is the one that has appeared since the first version of the standard, according to Ecological Transition, despite the information that pointed to the fact that any combustion vehicle would be prohibited from that date.

The legal text that will be processed in Parliament includes other objectives, such as reaching 2050 with a fleet of cars and commercial vehicles without direct CO2 emissions, as well as a goal of penetration of vehicles with zero or low CO2 emissions by 2030, which the PNIEC has set at five million.

Source: Five Days