Spain has added 1.4GW of self-consumption solar PV in 2024, according to a report from the Association of Renewable Energy Companies (APPA).
The commercial and industrial (C&I) segment represented the bulk of additions in 2024 with 1,085MW, while residential solar added 346MW. The report also noted the addition of 155MWh of new energy storage capacity for self-consumption in 2024.
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This is a decrease from the previous year when the country added 1.9GW of self-consumption PV capacity, as shown in the chart below. Between 2023 and 2024, capacity additions dropped by 26.3%.
In 2022, the country had added a record 2.5GW of capacity – according to the Unión Española Fotovoltaica (UNEF), the Spanish solar trade body – and numbers have since decreased year after year. The degrowth of self-consumption in Spain in 2024 was due to the end of incentives from the EU’s Next Generation programme the previous year and price stabilising after the energy crisis from the previous years, said Jon Macías Santiago, president of APPA Autoconsumo.
The numbers are slightly above data from UNEF, the Spanish solar trade body, which registered 1.2GW (1,182MW) of self-consumption in 2024.
Spain not on target to install 19GW by 2030
According to APPA Renovables, Spain’s current pace for self-consumption PV additions would not be enough to reach the country’s cumulative target of 19GW by 2030. The current pace needed to reach the target would require the country to install 1.7GW per year, a target only reached in 2022 and 2023.
At the end of 2024, Spain had 8.5GW of self-consumption capacity installed, of which 6.3GW is from C&I and 2.2GW from residential solar.
Macías said that without the necessary measures, the 19GW goal will not be reached. The trade body called for a more favourable regulation that incentivises self-consumption in Spain with tax breaks of at least 25% on corporate tax or income tax for consumers.
Other measures include easier access to the grid and administrative digitalisation. Another issue for self-consumption capacity is the curtailment of installations over 100kW, which reached 2TWh in 2024, and a loss of €88 million (US$91 million), according to the report.
For the first time, APPA Renovables also tracked installed capacity by region, with the top three – Catalonia (1.5GW), Andalusia (1.4GW) and Valencian Community (1.2GW) – accounting for nearly half of all the self-consumption installed at the end of 2024.
