National Law to promote electric self-consumption.

After an uncontrolled boost of the renewable energy sector, including a high potential for self-consumption that could have led to an economic crisis of the sector, the national decree RD 900/2015 was approved. The aim was to guarantee the financial stability of the electrical system, but it included that consumers should pay additional taxes for the energy self-produced and consumed. The effect that it generated was just the opposite, a blockage in the use of self-consumption from renewable sources in Spain.
After a few years and through another national decree, RD-Law 15/2018 of urgent measures for the energy transition and consumers protection, and later RD 244/2019 that regulates electric self-consumption conditions, regulations were modified at the national level in order to promote energy self-consumption in all sectors, making administrative procedures easier and regulations more favourable for prosumers.
The aim of this regulatory change was to eliminate the existing barriers that have prevented the self-consumption activity from the beginning of its development in Spain. Their fundamental principles are:
i) Right to self-consume electricity without charge.
ii) Right to share self-consumption.
iii) Administrative and technical simplification.
This new regulation encourages renewable electric self-consumption as an essential element to ensure that the consumers can obtain cleaner and cheaper energy, democratizing the energy system.