2023-05-06 04:00:32
The drop in electricity demand and the strong penetration of renewable energies in Spain have plunged electricity generation in Asturias by almost 20% in the first quarter of the year. The Principality is far from completing its energy transition -because its production is still closely linked to plants that consume fossil fuels- and at times when solar and wind energy have favorable conditions, Asturias loses prominence in energy generation in favor of other territories.
During the first quarter of the year, Asturias generated 2,798 gigawatt hours of electricity, which is almost 20% less than in the same period of the previous year, according to data published yesterday by the Asturian Society for Economic and Industrial Studies (Sadei).
Two main factors explain this drop in production. Firstly, the decrease in electricity demand. In the accumulated first quarter, Spain registered a demand of 62,715 gigawatt hours, 2.6% less than in the same period of 2022 according to data from Red Eléctrica de España. The cause is the decrease in energy consumption in companies and homes and the increase in photovoltaic self-consumption installations in industry and the residential sector, according to sources from the ASE energy advisory group.
The other factor that explains the fall in electricity production in Asturias is linked to the good conditions that have occurred in the first quarter of the year for electricity generation with wind and sun. In fact, in that period, wind power covered 27.1% of the national electricity demand –it was the main source– and solar power 10.7%. Renewables as a whole covered 51.8% of the demand and nuclear was in charge of 21.3%. The thermal “gap” was reduced and thus gas combined cycles only covered 14.7% of demand and coal plants 1.6%.
Deployment of renewables
Despite the start-up of new wind farms in recent years, Asturias is one of the regions with the lowest installed power in renewables. It contributes 2.3% of the national total, only above the Canary Islands, La Rioja, the Basque Country, the Balearic Islands, Madrid and Cantabria. In Asturias, the closure of coal plants – in recent years Iberdrola closed the one in Lada and Naturgy that of Soto de la Barca – has not been offset by new equivalent renewable power. For this reason, the weight of generation technologies with fossil fuels –EDP’s coal plants in Aboño and Soto de Ribera and Hunosa’s in La Pereda, and EDP’s combined cycle groups in Soto de Ribera– continues to be very important. The poor conditions for renewables, the shutdown of nuclear power and the strong increase in foreign demand –especially from France– caused the production of electricity with fossil fuels to pick up last year after the falls due to the pandemic and that Asturias registered a peak of production. But once these factors disappeared, Asturias has registered a collapse of production in the first quarter of the year due to its low production of renewable energy.
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