The CNMC presents its Circular on Access and Connection to Electricity Networks, which dispenses with the single point of contact
The National Commission f
or Markets and Competition (CNMC) has approved the submission to the Council of State of the circular establishing the methodology and conditions for access and connection to the transmission and distribution networks of electricity production facilities, despite the fact that its disagreements on the regulations with the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge have not been resolved.
Thus, the CNMC has continued with its regulations, noting that in the Commission for Cooperation with the Executive it has “heard” the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge due to the existing divergences in some points of the text.
Specifically, the main reason for the discrepancy is that, in the opinion of the Cabinet headed by Teresa Ribera, the regulation that the CNMC can make by circular of access and connection must be subject to the approval of a royal decree that regulates the general procedure of access and connection, in which the regulation is framed.
However, in the CNMC’s view, this interpretation by the Ministry is not in line with European regulations, which determine that the exercise by national regulatory authorities of jurisdiction over access and connection may not be conditioned by the government of the Member States, and is also contrary to the royal decree of early 2019 which returned jurisdiction over energy matters to the ‘super regulator’.
In view of these considerations, and given the urgent need to finally regulate the methodology and conditions of access and connection, the CNMC has deemed it appropriate to continue the process of approving the circular.
Computer and evaluation of applications
With this regulation, the regulator pointed out that it proposes to establish objective criteria to order the requests for access and connection and to evaluate the plausibility of their effective execution and implementation, after the accumulated requests have now saturated the nodes of the networks where there are abundant wind and solar resources.
In fact, these requests for access and connection of wind and solar photovoltaic generation with access permission exceeded 112 GW at the close of last March, while there are another 44.9 GW with requests in progress without access permission and another 96.7 GW have been denied access permission, according to data from Red Eléctrica de España (REE).
These figures greatly exceed the ambitious objectives for the integration of renewable energies established in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC).
The circular, which was submitted for a hearing last summer and received nearly sixty allegations from network managers, public administrations, sector associations, promoters and companies of various kinds, the CNMC seeks to simplify, update and integrate into a standard the procedures, deadlines and criteria used to evaluate the access capacity and the feasibility of connecting production facilities.
Perpetuating beyond life
To this end, the body chaired by José María Marín Quemada establishes an unequivocal order of priority in the processing of applications and prevents, in general, the perpetuation of the permits granted beyond the useful life of the installations.
It also increases transparency by improving access to relevant information and helps to distinguish requests supported by sound projects from those that may be of a merely speculative nature.
No single point of contact
The circular also proposes to dispense with the figure of the so-called ‘single node interlocutor’ in order to avoid the potential conflict of interest it entails and to remove barriers to access to evacuation lines, without prejudice to the maintenance of compensation agreements.
In addition, it contemplates the possibility of granting permits for ‘complementary power’ above the theoretically maximum available to squeeze the capacity of the networks in situations of low use and establishes specific deadlines for accrediting the progress of duly identified projects and ensuring their completion.
Furthermore, in response to the allegations made, the CNMC has extended several deadlines, clarified certain definitions or avoided possible ambiguities.
The circumstances for the execution of the economic guarantees have also been modified, in particular by omitting those derived from the environmental condition as being attributable to the interested party; the reference to the obligatory payment of the access and connection studies has been eliminated (the price remains pending development), and the requirement to prove the right to the land to be occupied has been replaced by detailed identification of the same.
The regulator also relaxes, within a time frame, the review of the technical and economic conditions of connection arising from the entry of new applicants at a point.
Likewise, consideration has been given to the latest developments of the working group led by the system operator (REE) on the establishment of a reference value for the access criterion linked to the short circuit power at each node; and the characterization of the facilities subject to said criterion has been updated in accordance with the consideration of their behavior, whether or not it is analogous to that of synchronous generation.
Source: https://elperiodicodelaenergia.com/la-cnmc-presenta-su-circular-de-acceso-y-conexion-a-las-redes-electricas-que-prescinde-del-interlocutor-unico-de-nudo/
