MADRID – 2021 will be a crucial year in Spain for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The large energy companies will invest billions of euros to position themselves well in the green energy market.
Iberdrola, Endesa, Repsol, Red Eléctrica, Enagás and Naturgy have already announced that they will invest more than €50billion in sustainable energy production. The pandemic has been a stimulus for this green transition in which the production of carbon-free energy should strengthen the market position.
Iberdrola
Iberdrola has the most ambitious plans in the strategic plan up to 2025. The energy company has allocated a budget of €75 billion euros, more than half of which is intended for sustainable energy. This means the energy company will have a capacity of 60 gigawatts by the end of 2025. That almost doubles the current capacity of 32 gigawatts. By the end of 2025, 4 gigawatts will come from wind energy generated at sea, 26 gigawatts from wind energy generated on land, 16 gigawatts will come from solar energy and 14 gigawatts from hydropower plants.
Endesa
Endesa is investing €3.3billion in a sustainable energy park. They expect the park to attain a capacity of 11,500 megawatts from solar, wind, and hydropower energy by the end of 2023. Using green energy funds from both the Spanish government and the EU, Endesa expects to be able to make a mega-investment of €25billion in the green energy transition between 2021 and 2030.
Repsol
Repsol will invest €4billion in sustainable energy from next year to 2025. That is 300% more than in the previous sustainable energy plan. It aims to be a CO2-free company by the year 2050.
Naturgy
Naturgy wants to see the capacity of its sustainable installations tripled by the end of 2022. That will provide a capacity of 12.8 gigawatts of green energy. Spain, Chile and Australia are building new projects with a total capacity of 1,400 megawatts. The energy company itself has not released future invesment figures. However, sources from the energy market estimate it at around €3.8billion.
Enagás
Enagás had already pledged to invest €300million in hydrogen energy, biogas and biomethane between 2020 and 2026. From 2021, the government’s green energy fund will invest another €1.5billion in hydrogen energy.
More sustainable than non-renewable energy
According to the Spanish Red Eléctrica de España (REED), in 2019, for the first time in Spain, more energy was obtained (52%) from renewable sources than from other energy installations. 2019 ended with a record 104.8 megawatts of green energy.
