The Photovoltaic Solar Energy It's fashionable. Both self-consumption and plants on the ground are spraying all records solar installation and production. During this decade at least others will settle in Spain. 30 GW of solar energy (almost 3 times the currently installed power). And if we look at the connection points granted and the projects in the pipeline, we could go well above that number.
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Favorable situation for solar energy in Spain
Added to this is a favorable situation for solar energy, with high electricity prices, with annual renewable energy auctions and with funds public of the Next Generation to develop solar self-consumption in companies, homes and public administrations.
In other words, just on the current path, solar energy will take off in Spain in an impressive way and electricity prices will drop considerably thanks to the increase in the supply of electrical energy. So why touch anything?
In my judgement, the element to improve in the development of solar energy in Spain (as happens, unfortunately, with other energies and in general, with other consumer sectors) is the very high dependence on Asian materials.
Aside from the local employment generated by the installation of these materials (and which is not negligible), Spain should bet more decisively on local materialss, or at least, Europeans. This will necessarily come from a combination of re-industrialization and awareness (both of investors and citizens).
EU re-industrialization strategy
It's been a while since the European Union is working on a re-industrialization strategy for the entire territory in different sectors, and specifically, in the solar sector, there is the European Solar Initiative, which aims to generate a hub European initiative for the industrialization of solar energy in Europe by 2025. In the Spanish case, the association UNEF has also proposed a solar industrial strategy for Spain, highlighting the numerous Spanish companies that are already part of the solar energy value chain.
in an iphotovoltaic installation we can distinguish five types of components: the solar panels, the inverter, the structure, the solar tracker (if applicable) and the small material (wiring, electrical panel...). For all of them there are Spanish manufacturing options, although in the case of solar panels the alternatives are, for now, limited, at uncompetitive prices and without qualities and sizes comparable, for now, to Asian ones.
Specifically, in solar inverters we have companies that are at the forefront of the world, such as Ingeteam or Power Electronics, as happens with solar trackers, where it stands out Soltec. Solvent solutions can also be found in structures, such as Alusín or Braux, to name two of the many Spanish companies in this field.
Advantages of consuming local materials
Consuming local materials, obviously, contributes to the local job creation, especially in regions with an industrial tradition, such as Asturias or León, greatly affected by the closure of mines and coal plants. Furthermore, thanks to generating locally, we avoid or reduce emissions from the transportation of materials, and we also reduce dependence on Asian suppliers who, in some cases, due to shortage of materials, are renegotiating contracts and prices in an arbitrary, unilateral and discretionary manner.
And finally, and we cannot forget it, producing in the European Union ensures minimum labor and human rights standards, which in the case of some of the Chinese factories are not being met. Specifically, in the province of Xinjiang the use of labor from the Uyghur ethnic minority in conditions of semi-slavery.
In order for us to move towards the use of local materials (100% will be difficult to achieve, but it is not acceptable to be close to 0%), the European Commission and Member States They must take more decisive steps in that direction, so that, fleeing from protectionist measures, they do ensure that materials that have been manufactured with flagrant violations of the most basic human rights cannot enter Europe.
Require that for installations of a certain size (100 kW in the case of self-consumption), if they obtain a subsidy or participate in an auction, a detailed analysis of the origin of the materials, as the Spanish Government has recently done, is a first step that allows at least to measure the dimension of the problem. But it is necessary to go further and offer advantages to the use of European materials, internalizing in the regulation those positive externalities that they generate, and especially, the reduction of transport emissions.
