Two new Ministerial Orders regarding renewable energy and cogeneration retribution have been published
It is a tradition for Spanish Governments to publish laws when everybody is ready to go on holiday. With the publication of two Ministerial Orders the retribution of installations that produce electric energy from renewable energy sources, cogeneration and wastes changed yet again.
Both orders complement Order IET/1045/2014, of June 16th, which adopts the retributive parameters of type installations applicable to certain installations that produce electric energy from renewable energy sources, cogeneration and wastes.
Accordingly, even though one of them comes into force the ninth of July 2015 and the other on August 1st 2015, both have retroactive effect as of July 14th, 2013, which is the date when the Royal Decree 9/2013 came into force. Bearing in mind that such law was conducted with sense of urgency it is quite surprising to see regulations to develop it are still being approved.
Order IET/1344/2015 establishes type installations and its corresponding retributive parameters for those installations that, after Order IET/1045/2014, did not fit any installation type established in the order. Therefore, all the installations that were not contemplated in the order, have not received retribution until today.
Regarding the settlement of the amounts owed to the producers who have been more than a year without receiving any retribution, the first additional provision of the order provides that the authority responsible for the settlements, currently the CNMC, will settle the specific retributive system from the day when RDL 9/2013 comes into force. These settlements will be included in the following settlement to be done after the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism informs the responsible authority about the modification of the specific retributive system Register of these installations.
In case of negative balances, eighth transitional provision of Royal decree 413/2014 will be observed to regularize this.
Order IET/1345/2015 is born with the objective of establishing a methodology to update the retribution to the operation for cogeneration type installations, based on the evolution of fuel prices, as well as the changes in the access costs for the gas supply system for those which use natural gas.
Furthermore, this order establishes the operation retribution values applicable to the second semester of 2015, also for those type installations for which the previous Order IET/1045/2014 did not provide operation retribution for being the date of authorization of the definitive exploitation later than 2014.
Some critical voices have appeared from the cogeneration sector criticizing the lack of information about the calculation which justifies the methodology of actualization or the detection of certain mistakes in the formulation of the cost estimation of the access tolls to natural gas.
We will be closely following the criticism to both regulations by the sector technicians. In the following weeks we will publish an article with a detailed summary of them.
You can read Order IET/1344/2015 here