Self-consumption condemns intrusion that compromises the quality of objects
The self-consumption boom that the sector experienced in 2022 has had its consequences. The inability of specialist companies to meet demand has led to them turning to professional solar panel installers from other disciplines and this has put the quality of installations at risk.
This was announced this Monday by John Macias, President of APPA Autoconsumo. “We have seen properties that we don’t like because the quality of the facilities was inadequate. When you grow at triple digits, that happens in any sector and it affects the intrusion,” he says.
Promotion of vocational training
To try to mitigate this situation, the association has signed a cooperation agreement with the Institute for Energy Diversification and Energy Conservation (Idea), owned by the Ministry of Green Transition, to improve training levels and provide professionals with adequate training for the market.
In any case, this problem is, in principle, specific, since it was found in facilities created in 2022, when the industry experienced a boom in demand, which died down in 2023, “the first year in the historical series in which demand for own consumption fell “confirmed José María González Moya, Director General of the Association.
In 2023, 1,943 new MW will be installed.
In particular, Spain installed 1,943 new megawatts (MW) for self-consumption in 2023, representing a drop of 26% compared to the record set in 2022, according to data compiled by Appa. The decline was more pronounced in the residential sector. sector, which fell 49% compared with a 13% decline in the installation of new industrial capacity. In terms of the number of installations, there are 127,000 new installations, of which 88% (111,795) were installed in homes and 12% (15,509) in businesses.
With this increase, installed capacity for self-consumption will reach 7,262 GWh, equivalent to 3% of electricity demand. “This is an amount that already exceeds the total capacity of nuclear energy. This does not mean that it is superior in energy production, since nuclear power plants have continuous production, which is not the case with photovoltaic plants, which only produce during sunny hours. However, the fact that data on these objects is provided only by associations and there is no publicly available data,” John Macias noted, is a rarity.
€131 million in losses due to unnecessary network dumps
Despite this slowdown, the sector is confident in its growth potential, since “only 7% of private homes and 2% of companies have facilities for self-consumption,” said José María González Moya, who in turn is “confident” and believes that for It is “feasible” for Spain to “achieve the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) target of installing 19 GW of self-consumption systems.”
The report also highlights that overall system efficiency has improved and facility losses have decreased compared to 2022. If two years ago 19% of the generation of all self-consumption objects was wasted, 160 million euros. In 2023, this amount was reduced to 18% and approached €131 million. “This is primarily a problem of large industrial facilities, which react “to the absurd situation where they have to block generation with the help of anti-discharge systems due to regulatory and technical restrictions,” the association warns.