Spanish wind sector welcomes energy reforms CHRISTOPHER HOPSON S pains long-suffering wind industry has given a big welcome to major government reforms of the electricity sector, designed to encourage the wider deployment of renewables, while rolling back many of the restrictions imposed by the previous administration. Teresa Ribera, Spains minister for ecological transition, this week announced sweeping electricity market reforms, including measures to change outdated price-setting mechanisms because of their negative impact on both investors and consumers. Heikki Willstedt Mesa, director of energy policy at the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE), told Recharge at the Global Wind Summit that it welcomed the reforms because finally there is a minister in Spain who understands that the right policies need to be in place to achieve stated objectives. In this case, the objectives are quite ambitious, because Ribera has said at least 32% of energy has Spains minister for ecological transition, Teresa Ribera to come from renewables in Spain by 2030. But they might go for an even higher target, and together with other associations we are discussing what that might be. Ribera said with a €100bn ($117m) investment in renewable generation and increased storage capacity, Spain could obtain a saving of around €400bn on consumers electricity bills and meet its 32% EU renewables target by 2030. She said it was important for Spain to reverse the damage to investor confidence created by the unilateral changes to renewables tariffs made in 2013 by the previous government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Willstedt Mesa said the government wants to promote the use of long-term corporate power-purchase agreements (PPAs) in order to shift a large percentage of energy out of the wholesale electricity market. The situation in Spain is very conducive to the introduction of these types of contracts as wholesale prices have gone up, so big industrial players are looking at these PPAs so they can hedge against an increase in the cost of electricity. The AEE has welcomed government plans to encourage the repowering of older wind farms and for developers to be granted time extensions for projects held up by bureaucratic obstacles. Most of the installations from recent renewables auctions held in 2016 and 2017 will be built next year, but their permits were due to expire before they could be built so it was very important these permits were extended for a couple of years. Ribera plans to scrap a 7% tax on electricity production from all types of technologies, introduced by the previous administration. This tax is going to be suspended next week. She has also announced plans to remove the barriers to self-generation in Spain by scrapping the so-called solar tax also introduced by the previous administration. Turbine availability significantly reduced after 10 years in operation Photograph AFP/Getty ANDREW LEE 7 Onshore turbines show significant reduction in availability after ten years of operation, with later-life failures resulting in significantly more downtime than earlier in their lifecycle, latest data from wind rechargenews.com benchmarking specialist WEBS shows. WEBS looked at performance metrics from 22 appropriately aged operating onshore wind farms to explore the impact of age on performance, revealing a bathtub curve with high failure rates at the start and end of life. However, the failures later in life have much more downtime associated with each outage, said its latest report. Consequently, older wind farms are experiencing significantly more unforeseen downtime and this is driving the major reduction in availability in the latter half of life. WEBS, which provides anonymised data from leading international onshore wind farms added that its sample group showed relatively stable rates of availability across the year, while capacity factor averaged 29% and peaked at 37% in Q4 2017. OFFICIAL SHOW DAILY Global Wind Summit 2018 Visit us at Stand 318, Hall B7 Visit us at Stand 318, Hall B7 Produced by RECHARGE rechargenews.com Poland to unveil 1GW renewables tender BERND RADOWITZ Photograph Bernd Radowitz P olands energy regulator is expected to announce details of a clos WINDENERGY 2014 RECHARGE OFFICIAL EVENT DAILY ProducedHAMBURG by RECHARGE rechargenews.com BERND RADOWITZ Siemens Gamesas offshore wind boss, Andreas Nauen Photography Siemens Gamesa A fter Taiwan, Japan will be the next big market for offshore wind power in Asia, with projects of at least WINDENERGY 2014 RECHARGE OFFICIAL EVENT DAILY ProducedHAMBURG by RECHARGE rechargenews.com ANDREW LEE A rgentinas renewables programme is well shielded to ride out the economic storm battering the country, claimed the governments renewable energy under-secretary. 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