UTILITIES
IBERDROLA’ S ROLE IN SPAIN’ S TRANSITION
Ignacio Galán Executive Chairman Iberdrola
What the rest of Europe is paying While Europe is so often coordinated in its approach to energy, Spain is actually something of an outlier in this instance.
The bloc’ s wholesale gas prices have risen by 60 % since the Iran war began, and the EU has collectively increased its fossil fuel imports in response, accumulating a US $ 65bn energy bill from the conflict.
Of that, analysis from the Jacques Delors Institute( JDI) suggests that just a small amount of those premiums – around US $ 2.2bn – have been reinvested into electrification.
“ Less than 5 % of it has gone to electrification measures, the one structural investment that reduces exposure today and builds energy resilience for tomorrow,” says Alice Moscovici, a researcher at the JDI.
Iberdrola’ s influence on Spain’ s current energy landscape cannot be understated. The company runs its Renewables Operation Centre in Toledo, a hub that monitors more than 300 wind farms, solar plants, substations and batteries across 11 countries in real time.
In Spain alone, Iberdrola operates almost 200 onshore wind farms with over 6.65GW of installed capacity, including El Andévalo, the largest onshore wind complex in continental Europe. The company has also pushed into hybrid generation.
In Burgos, it is building Spain’ s first hybrid wind and solar plant, combining two technologies at a single site to reduce dependence on any one weather condition.
Offshore, the company’ s ambitions run higher still. Iberdrola has identified around 2GW of floating offshore wind potential off Galicia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, a signal of how far the country’ s renewable story still has to run.
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