B1 · Intermediate
17 min
energyenvironmentpoliticshistoryeconomicsspain
España bajo el sol: la revolución de la energía solar
Spain in the Sun: The Solar Energy Revolution
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Intermediate level — perfect for intermediate learners expanding their range.
So I want to start with something that hit me when I was driving through Extremadura a couple of years ago.
Miles and miles of solar panels, just stretching out across this ancient, dry landscape.
And I remember thinking: why did it take so long?
Bueno, esa es la pregunta correcta.
Well, that's exactly the right question.
España tiene sol durante casi todo el año.
Spain has sunshine for almost the entire year.
En muchas regiones, hay más de dos mil ochocientas horas de sol al año.
In many regions, there are more than two thousand eight hundred hours of sunshine a year.
Es una cantidad enorme.
That's an enormous amount.
Y sí, tardamos mucho en aprovechar esto de verdad.
And yes, it took us a long time to really take advantage of it.
Two thousand eight hundred hours.
I mean, London gets about fifteen hundred in a good year.
Spain is sitting on this incredible natural resource and for decades, the story was: not much happening.
So let's actually go back.
Where does Spain's relationship with energy begin, historically speaking?
Mira, durante la época de Franco, España dependía mucho del carbón y del petróleo importado.
Look, during the Franco era, Spain depended heavily on coal and imported oil.
El país no tenía muchos recursos propios.
The country didn't have many of its own resources.
Era una economía cerrada, muy aislada.
It was a closed economy, very isolated.
La energía era un problema político, no solo económico.
Energy was a political problem, not just an economic one.
Right, and then 1973 hits.
The oil crisis.
That changes everything for a lot of countries.
What did it mean specifically for Spain?
La crisis de 1973 fue un golpe muy fuerte para España.
The 1973 crisis was a very hard blow for Spain.
El precio del petróleo subió muchísimo y España importaba casi todo su petróleo.
The price of oil went up enormously and Spain imported almost all of its oil.
La economía sufrió mucho.
The economy suffered a great deal.
Y fue en esa época cuando el gobierno empezó a construir centrales nucleares.
And it was around that time that the government started building nuclear power plants.
So nuclear was the answer they reached for.
Which, look, a lot of countries did the same thing.
France obviously went very deep down that road.
But here's what gets me: Spain has all this sun, and the response to an energy crisis was to build nuclear plants, not to look up.
Es que la tecnología solar en los años setenta era muy cara y muy limitada.
The thing is, solar technology in the seventies was very expensive and very limited.
No era una opción real todavía.
It wasn't a real option yet.
Pero tienes razón en algo importante: España construyó algunas centrales nucleares y después, en los años ochenta, el gobierno socialista decidió parar.
But you're right about something important: Spain built some nuclear plants and then, in the eighties, the socialist government decided to stop.
No construyeron más.
They didn't build any more.
The socialists came in with Felipe González, and they essentially froze the nuclear program.
So Spain ended up in this middle ground: not fully nuclear like France, not yet solar.
Burning a lot of gas and imported coal for years.
And then in the early two thousands, renewables started to look interesting.
Wind first, then solar.
And for a moment, Spain looked like it was going to lead the world.
Sí, en 2007 y 2008, España construyó muchísimas plantas solares.
Yes, in 2007 and 2008, Spain built enormous numbers of solar plants.
El gobierno pagaba precios muy altos por la electricidad solar.
The government paid very high prices for solar electricity.
Era un sistema de subvenciones muy generoso.
It was a very generous subsidy system.
Demasiado generoso, la verdad.
Too generous, honestly.
And then the financial crisis hit in 2008.
Spain's economy collapsed.
And the government started cutting everything, including those subsidies.
I've read that investors lost billions.
Some of them took Spain to international arbitration.
That's a serious wound to the industry.
Fue un desastre.
It was a disaster.
Muchas empresas perdieron mucho dinero.
Many companies lost a lot of money.
El gobierno cambió las reglas después de que las empresas ya invirtieron su dinero.
The government changed the rules after companies had already invested their money.
Eso fue muy malo para la confianza.
That was very bad for confidence.
Pero lo peor vino después, con el gobierno de Rajoy.
But the worst came later, under the Rajoy government.
Okay, this is the thing I genuinely could not believe when I first heard about it.
The sun tax.
Octavio, explain this to me, because I still find it almost surreal.
A ver, en 2015 el gobierno aprobó una ley muy polémica.
Okay, so in 2015 the government passed a very controversial law.
Si una persona tenía paneles solares en su casa y producía electricidad para su propio uso, tenía que pagar un impuesto.
If a person had solar panels on their house and produced electricity for their own use, they had to pay a tax.
La gente lo llamó el impuesto al sol.
People called it the sun tax.
Era literalmente un impuesto por usar la energía del sol.
It was literally a tax for using the energy of the sun.
They taxed people for generating their own electricity from a free natural resource.
I covered governments in some fairly creative places, and that is genuinely impressive in its audacity.
So who was behind it and why?
Mira, las grandes empresas eléctricas, las que llamamos las eléctricas, tenían mucho poder político.
Look, the big electricity companies, what we call the power utilities, had a lot of political power.
Si la gente producía su propia electricidad, las empresas ganaban menos dinero.
If people produced their own electricity, the companies earned less money.
Entonces presionaron al gobierno para proteger su negocio.
So they pressured the government to protect their business.
Y el gobierno de Rajoy les escuchó.
And Rajoy's government listened to them.
The thing is, this isn't unique to Spain.
You see this pattern in the US too, in states like Florida and Arizona, where utilities have spent millions lobbying against rooftop solar because it threatens their model.
It's the same fight.
Incumbents protecting infrastructure they've already paid for.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y el resultado fue que España paró casi completamente el desarrollo de la energía solar pequeña, la de las casas y los pequeños negocios.
And the result was that Spain nearly completely stopped the development of small-scale solar energy, the kind for homes and small businesses.
Otros países europeos, como Alemania, avanzaron mucho.
Other European countries, like Germany, made a lot of progress.
España se quedó atrás durante años.
Spain fell behind for years.
And then 2018.
A new government comes in, Pedro Sánchez, the Socialists.
And they scrap the sun tax almost immediately.
What happened after that?
Bueno, el cambio fue muy rápido.
Well, the change was very fast.
El gobierno eliminó el impuesto al sol en 2018.
The government eliminated the sun tax in 2018.
Y también cambió las reglas para que las empresas y las familias pudieron instalar paneles solares sin tantos problemas.
And they also changed the rules so that companies and families could install solar panels without so many complications.
La inversión en energía solar creció muy rápido después de eso.
Investment in solar energy grew very quickly after that.
And the numbers since then are genuinely striking.
I was looking at the figures before we recorded.
Spain added more solar capacity in 2023 than in the entire previous decade combined.
The country generated a record amount of its electricity from renewables.
It's a real inflection point.
Los números son muy buenos.
The numbers are very good.
En 2023, las energías renovables produjeron casi el cincuenta por ciento de la electricidad de España.
In 2023, renewable energies produced almost fifty percent of Spain's electricity.
La energía solar fue una parte importante de eso.
Solar energy was an important part of that.
Y en algunos días, la energía solar produjo más del treinta por ciento de toda la electricidad del país.
And on some days, solar energy produced more than thirty percent of all the country's electricity.
Thirty percent of a whole country's electricity from the sun, in a single day.
That's extraordinary.
But I want to go back to what I saw in Extremadura, because there's a tension there that I don't think gets talked about enough.
Those solar farms are enormous.
They change the landscape completely.
Sí, es un problema real.
Yes, it's a real problem.
En Extremadura, en Castilla-La Mancha, en Andalucía, hay plantas solares muy grandes.
In Extremadura, in Castilla-La Mancha, in Andalusia, there are very large solar plants.
Algunas ocupan miles de hectáreas.
Some of them cover thousands of hectares.
Y mucha gente en estas regiones pregunta: ¿esto es bueno para nosotros, o es bueno solo para las grandes empresas?
And many people in these regions ask: is this good for us, or is it only good for the big companies?
That question cuts right to the heart of it.
Because you can build the greenest energy system in the world and still have a legitimacy problem if the people who live in those landscapes feel like they're just providing a platform for someone else's profits.
I saw this in West Texas with wind farms.
Same argument, different geography.
La verdad es que hay dos opiniones muy diferentes.
The truth is there are two very different opinions.
Algunos dicen que estas plantas solares crearon muchos trabajos en regiones que necesitaban trabajo.
Some say that these solar plants created a lot of jobs in regions that needed work.
Extremadura es una de las regiones más pobres de España.
Extremadura is one of the poorest regions in Spain.
Pero otras personas dicen que los trabajos son temporales y que el dinero va a Madrid o a otras ciudades.
But other people say the jobs are temporary and that the money goes to Madrid or other cities.
And that brings up something I want to make sure we talk about, which is energy poverty.
Because there's a real irony here.
Spain has this solar boom, electricity from renewables is getting cheaper to produce, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of Spanish families who struggle to pay their electricity bills.
How does that work?
Es que el precio de la electricidad en España no depende solo de cuánto cuesta producirla.
The thing is, the price of electricity in Spain doesn't only depend on how much it costs to produce it.
El mercado eléctrico europeo es muy complicado.
The European electricity market is very complicated.
Cuando el precio del gas sube, el precio de toda la electricidad sube también, incluso la solar.
When the price of gas goes up, the price of all electricity goes up too, even solar.
Esto pasó mucho en 2021 y 2022.
This happened a lot in 2021 and 2022.
So you can have more solar than ever and still have people who can't heat their homes because of how the market is structured.
That's a real political problem, not just a technical one.
And I know Spain tried to do something about this, a kind of Iberian exception to the European pricing rules.
Sí, España y Portugal pidieron una excepción especial a la Unión Europea.
Yes, Spain and Portugal asked for a special exception from the European Union.
Querían limitar el precio del gas para bajar el precio de la electricidad.
They wanted to cap the price of gas to lower the price of electricity.
La UE aceptó esto en 2022.
The EU accepted this in 2022.
Fue una victoria política para el gobierno de Sánchez, y también para los consumidores.
It was a political victory for Sánchez's government, and for consumers too.
Which brings us to the geopolitical dimension, and honestly this is where the story gets really big.
Because Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed everything about how Europe thinks about energy.
Suddenly every country was asking: how do we get off Russian gas?
And Spain was in a surprisingly good position.
Bueno, España nunca dependió mucho del gas ruso.
Well, Spain never depended much on Russian gas.
La mayoría del gas de España llegó de Argelia y también en barcos, en forma de gas natural licuado.
Most of Spain's gas came from Algeria and also in ships, in the form of liquefied natural gas.
Entonces cuando Europa tuvo el problema con Rusia, España pudo ayudar a otros países europeos.
So when Europe had the problem with Russia, Spain was able to help other European countries.
And on top of that, Spain started talking about hydrogen.
Green hydrogen, produced with solar and wind power, as a potential export to the rest of Europe.
There's this whole plan for a hydrogen corridor connecting the Iberian Peninsula to central Europe through France.
It's a genuinely ambitious idea.
El hidrógeno verde es importante para el futuro.
Green hydrogen is important for the future.
La idea es usar la electricidad solar para producir hidrógeno, y después exportar ese hidrógeno a Alemania, Francia, otros países.
The idea is to use solar electricity to produce hydrogen, and then export that hydrogen to Germany, France, other countries.
España y Portugal firmaron acuerdos con la Unión Europea para este proyecto.
Spain and Portugal signed agreements with the European Union for this project.
Es una oportunidad muy grande.
It's a very big opportunity.
Here's what gets me though.
Spain has had big energy ambitions before.
The early two thousands solar boom, remember, ended badly.
So the question I keep coming back to is: what's different this time?
Is the infrastructure actually there to handle all this solar power being generated?
La verdad es que la red eléctrica es un problema serio.
The truth is that the electricity grid is a serious problem.
Cuando hay mucho sol y mucho viento al mismo tiempo, la red no puede transportar toda esa electricidad.
When there is a lot of sun and a lot of wind at the same time, the grid can't transport all that electricity.
Entonces a veces las plantas solares tienen que parar, incluso cuando pueden producir electricidad.
So sometimes solar plants have to stop, even when they could be producing electricity.
Los técnicos lo llaman curtailment, o vertimiento.
Technicians call it curtailment, or vertimiento.
So you're producing clean energy that you literally can't use or move.
That's a real bottleneck.
Spain needs to invest massively in grid upgrades, in storage, in interconnections with France and Portugal.
And that's not as glamorous as a solar farm but it might actually be more important.
Totalmente.
Totally.
La conexión eléctrica entre España y Francia es muy pequeña todavía.
The electricity connection between Spain and France is still very small.
Es un problema histórico.
It's a historic problem.
Francia siempre tuvo miedo de la competencia de la energía barata española.
France was always worried about competition from cheap Spanish energy.
Pero ahora la UE quiere invertir más dinero en estas conexiones porque Europa necesita más energía renovable.
But now the EU wants to invest more money in these connections because Europe needs more renewable energy.
Right, so there's a political dimension to the grid too.
France protecting its nuclear industry by not wanting cheap Spanish solar flooding the market.
I mean, energy is never just about electrons, is it.
It's always about money and power and national interest.
Siempre.
Always.
Y también hay un debate dentro de España sobre quién debe controlar la energía solar.
And there's also a debate inside Spain about who should control solar energy.
Ahora mismo, las grandes empresas controlan la mayor parte de la producción solar.
Right now, big companies control most of the solar production.
Pero muchas personas quieren un modelo diferente, con más participación de los ciudadanos y los municipios.
But many people want a different model, with more participation from citizens and local councils.
The community energy model.
I've seen this work really well in parts of Germany and Denmark, where local cooperatives own wind and solar installations.
The revenue stays in the community.
People have a stake in the infrastructure.
It changes the political dynamic completely.
En España esto se llama comunidades energéticas.
In Spain this is called energy communities.
Son grupos de vecinos o municipios que producen y comparten su propia electricidad solar.
They are groups of neighbours or local councils that produce and share their own solar electricity.
Todavía son pequeñas, pero crecieron mucho en los últimos años.
They are still small, but they grew a lot in recent years.
El gobierno quiere que este modelo sea más importante en el futuro.
The government wants this model to become more important in the future.
So let me put the big question to you directly.
When you look at all of this, the history, the sun tax fiasco, the post-2018 boom, the grid problems, the hydrogen ambitions, do you think Spain is genuinely leading Europe's energy transition?
Or is that a story Spain tells about itself?
A ver, la verdad es complicada.
Okay, the truth is complicated.
España tiene una ventaja natural enorme con el sol.
Spain has an enormous natural advantage with the sun.
Y los últimos años fueron muy positivos.
And the last few years were very positive.
Pero los problemas de la red eléctrica son reales.
But the grid problems are real.
La energía solar no llegó a todos los ciudadanos de la misma manera.
Solar energy didn't reach all citizens equally.
Y la historia de los errores anteriores todavía importa.
And the history of previous mistakes still matters.
España tiene el potencial para liderar, pero todavía no lidera completamente.
Spain has the potential to lead, but it doesn't lead completely yet.
I think that's the honest answer and I respect you for giving it.
The extraordinary thing, to me, is the speed of the reversal.
From taxing the sun in 2015 to generating thirty percent of national electricity from it in a single day less than a decade later.
Whatever the remaining problems are, that's a remarkable shift.
And the world is watching, because a lot of sun-rich countries are trying to figure out exactly what Spain is figuring out.
Sí, y para mí lo más importante es esto: España demostró que un país grande y moderno puede cambiar su sistema de energía muy rápido cuando quiere.
Yes, and for me the most important thing is this: Spain showed that a large, modern country can change its energy system very quickly when it wants to.
El impuesto al sol fue un error grande.
The sun tax was a big mistake.
Pero la decisión de eliminarlo y de apostar por el sol fue correcta.
But the decision to eliminate it and to bet on the sun was the right one.
Ahora el trabajo es hacer este cambio más justo para todos los españoles.
Now the work is to make this change fairer for all Spaniards.