Spain: Here is the new procedure for marine renewable energy installations

Aimed at fostering marine renewable energy and especially marine wind power, as a key element for achieving net zero and green transition targets, Royal Decree 962/2024 of September 24, 2024 on the generation of electricity from renewable sources in installations located in the sea was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on September 25.

After coming into force the day after its publication in the BOE, this decree has replaced the regime in Royal Decree 1028/2007 of July 20, 2007 and sets out a new set of administrative rules for authorization of marine renewable energy installations located in any marine waters under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of Spain.

The new rules are based on a competitive bidding process that all projects to build marine renewable energy installations will have to go through, unless they are for innovative installations or installations located in Spanish government general interest ports.

Successful bidders will be granted simultaneously the economic regime for renewable energy, an access capacity allocation for the transmission grid and a preferred right for obtaining concessions for public domain coastal land.

The process takes place in stages.

In the first, the specifications for the competitive bidding process will be approved by ministerial order, and will include, among other elements: (i) the capacity limit to be allocated; (ii) the amount of the guarantees that must be submitted; (iii) the parameters and elements that will govern the economic regime as set out in Royal Decree 960/2020 of November 3, 2020; (iv) the area where the generation parks will be situated, bearing in mind that they will always be located in zones with a high marine wind power potential as defined in the approved planning instruments for the maritime space; and, (v) the weighting criteria, which may include non-economic criteria up to 30% of the weighting. For the assessment of economic criteria, the price must be bid per unit of electricity relating to the renewable energy economic regime (€/MWh) and cannot be changed at any point in the process. The order will also specify the requirements for bidders (legal form, technical capability, company's experience, etc.) and for installations (installation design, environmental impact, socio-economic impact, etc.).

Then the public dialog stage will be held with the participation of parties affected by the marine renewable energy installations and developers seeking to carry out the projects, which will be able to send their comments or proposals.

And in the last stage the competitive bidding process will be called in a new ministerial order, which may include proposals received in the public dialog stage and will contain the process schedule, the information and documents needing to be included in the application, the reserve price and, if applicable, the risk price also.

Applications will be assessed by a technical assessment committee whose members and procedures will be determined in the ministerial order approving the specifications for the competitive bidding process.

The process will end with a decision by which successful bidders will be entered on the electronic register for the renewable energy economic regime with pre-allocation status. At that point, the successful installations will have to file applications for the necessary administrative authorizations such as those relating to the electric power installation or occupancy of public domain coastal land.

The royal decree also contains provisions on the renewable energy economic regime, on access and connection to the grid, on the guarantees that will be needed, on potential extensions and amendments of successful bids and on the consequences of discontinuance or breach by developers.

It needs to be mentioned in relation to access and connection to the grid that the nodes allocated for competitive bidding can be used for the transmission of energy generated by marine renewable energy installations. Importantly also, the decision on the competitive bidding process will entail the allocation of access capacity to the successful bidders.