Despite the moratorium to renewable premiums approved by the Government in January 2012, the country took advantage of previous exercises’ momentum and added a new power which, together with other nine European States, allows it to reach the renewable energies target until 2020.
These data appear in the annual report of the European Wind Energy Association, EWEA, which it predicts a change of tendency in Spain. According to the last outlook, Spain will suffer, along with Italy and Bulgaria’s, a “significant slowdown” in the wind power sector in the coming years.
In any case, Spain and Germany provide 52% of all the current EU wind power, far ahead of the United Kingdom, the third country with highest number of megawatts, 8,400. Italy and France go behind in the ranking, with 8,100 MW and 7,600 MW, respectively. Spain was also the fourth country to install more new wind power in the EU in 2012, only behind the 2,415 MW in Germany, the United Kingdom (1,897 MW) and the 1,273 MW of Italy.
The EU has a total wind capacity of 106,040 MW, enough to, in a normal year of wind amount, produce 231 Terawatt/hour (TWh) and cover 7% of all electricity consumption in the mainland, representing an increase of 6.3% in just one year.
According to the European business association estimates, the new wind power installed in Europe in 2012 was of 11,895 MW and the cost of this investment varies between €12,800bn and 17,200bn.
Given this scenario, the association concludes that the wind power has not experienced the same “significantly negative regulatory and policy-induced market uncertainty” impact that affects the sector since 2011.
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