BeClever, December 2024

Jonan Basterra19 December 2024·4 min read

Welcome to a new edition of BeClever, Clevergy's energy newsletter! We bring you the latest news from the energy sector at the end of this year.

2024: a record year for renewable energy in Spain

The share of renewable energy in power generation broke every record in 2024. Solar photovoltaic surpassed its entire 2023 production last 5 October, and wind power did the same last 21 November. With current figures, our country will end the year exceeding 56% renewable energy of the total generation mix, a figure that would be even higher if self-consumption and pumped-storage plants were taken into account. According to data from APPA (the Spanish Association of Renewable Energy Companies), Spain already has more than 8 GW of installed self-consumption capacity, equivalent to 3.7% of electricity demand, although the association acknowledges the difficulty of measuring this internal consumption by households and businesses and having it accounted for, while calling on the authorities to make an effort to obtain official data.

Monitoring electricity consumption means saving money

At Clevergy we recently carried out a study based on consumption data from close to 50,000 households, and we obtained a key result: users who make greater use of our applications, monitoring their consumption, are the ones who achieve the greatest savings. This not only increases their satisfaction, but also their positive assessment of the services offered by energy suppliers and installers.

Dunkelflaute, the terror of renewables that sent electricity prices soaring to 936€/MWh in Germany

Germany's power grid was pushed to the limit on 12 December when wind and solar generation stalled across the country and in neighbouring Denmark, sending the MWh price soaring to a peak of 936€/MWh, with the daily average close to 400€/MWh. By comparison, the average price in Spain that same day was 146€/MWh, reaching the month's highest price on that very day at 181€/MWh.

The “perfect storm” for this phenomenon is cold, windless nights, with electricity generation being covered by gas and coal plants. This drives a sharp rise in prices, and also means that Germany has been the European country with the most polluting power generation in these days.

Spain 2025: the data centre opportunity, the battery shortfall

The abundance of renewable energy in Spain, its geographical location and its infrastructure make our country a strategic territory given the growing need for new data centres for artificial intelligence.

On the other hand, Spain is trailing behind Europe in installing batteries for energy storage. While 10 GW of storage was installed in Europe in 2023, Spain barely exceeds 8GW in total, most of it corresponding to pumped-storage plants, and only 11MW in grid-connected batteries. Our country's lack of interconnection with its European neighbours, the so-called “energy island”, makes it especially important to promote this type of installation, which is also key for flexibility services.