Empty Spain:
an opportunity for renewable energies?
Spain has problems with self-consumption of energy, which could be solved by taking advantage of the depopulation of certain regions of the country.
5 min
Albaida (Valencia) - February 28, 2022
Over the last 150 years, the world has seen an average increase in Earth's temperature of 0.8ºC, mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions (a consequence of human activity).
Climate change in Europe, on the one hand, has led to a high rise in temperatures in the southern and Arctic regions of the continent, and on the other, a decrease in rainfall in the southern areas (where Spain enters). These are mainly changes that affect natural ecosystems, human health and water resources.
It is well known to (almost) everyone that climate change is a serious problem, which we need to address in the coming years. But how can we reduce it?
One of the most viable options could be to replace all energy sources with renewable sources, ie get rid of non-renewable energy sources, which in addition to being polluting will be depleted at some point. (natural gas, oil, nuclear energy, etc.) and replace them with renewable energy sources, which in addition to not polluting are unlimited (solar, wind, hydraulics, etc.).
The problem with these energy sources is that they require millions of euros in investments to be installed, but we must keep in mind that we can count on European funds of recovery to do so.
Regarding Spain, we depend a lot on non-renewable energies, such as natural gas and oil. Spain, for example, serves as a bridge for Europe for gas from Algeria. However, the situation in Europe is much more complicated as we will see later.
In 2019, the degree of external energy dependence in Spain was 75%, the highest since 2011. This means that the country imported three quarters of the energy consumed.
Spain has also a problem of depopulation in many regions of the country, such as Aragon, Andalusia, Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha.
As the graph shows, new births have been falling almost constantly since 1971. The main cause is basically the lack of opportunities that lead people to emigrate outside these areas.
On top of that, we add that, although Spain is slightly above the European average in terms of the share of energy production with renewable energy (not yet considering natural gas and nuclear energy), we believe that it has great potential to explode on the European scene.
Spain is one of the EU countries with the most hours of sunshine. The Valencian community in particular has an average of 3,175 hours of sunshine a year. Other communities such as Castilla la Mancha with 3,014 or Extremadura with 3,294 are great opportunities.
This map taken from Solargis shows us the rate of solar radiation in Europe, this translates into higher efficiency of photovoltaic plants.
Spain is in a privileged position in this aspect in the European context and that is why we think we have a golden opportunity.
Click on the image to open the interactive map!
Unfortunately, we started the research thinking about the energy dependence of unstable countries like Russia and now we have to live with the serious consequences of this instability: a war at the gates of Europe. All of the following statistics are more important given the circumstances.
This graphic is much more expressive than the words that could explain it.
Russia tops the ranking of countries from which we import energy, an issue as important as energy in developed societies is in the hands of a vain guerrilla.
To further illustrate the situation, we have made some fairly explanatory graphs:
Here we see how imports have only increased in most cases, and in all cases Russia is at the forefront of imports, a necessary recklessness in the geographically speaking energy conjecture of Europe.
This is, of course, a problem that we need to address.
For more information, hover over the graphics or click on them!
If all this did not seem enough, moreover, the price of these products has only increased lately in part also because of all these geopolitical tensions.
In contrast, according to data extracted from BloombergNEF, the cost of renewable energy has only decreased.
As we can see in Spain we have two major problems, which are depopulation in some areas (especially inland) and the massive use of non-renewable energy. These two problems have a common solution:
Our proposal is to take advantage of these depopulated areas to install new sources of renewable energy, bearing in mind that they usually coincide with the flatter areas of the country and those with the most energy potential (mainly solar and wind).
A perfect example would be to take advantage of the strong air currents of Castilla-La Mancha to install wind turbines, that is, to take advantage of the kinetic energy of the air masses that gather there. These facilities should be installed mainly in the province of Guadalajara, as it meets the requirements of being a mountainous area (these facilities perform best in high areas), and mostly uninhabited; or in Albacete, where there is a great flow of air, although it is more populated.
On the other hand, areas with a high index of solar radiation such as Extremadura and Castilla y León could be used for the installation of solar power plants.
Spain is able to become the leading supplier of renewable energy in Europe, the solution to the problems of dependence by focusing on other countries such as Finland and Norway that already export their renewable energy.