IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2015 - 37

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/kWh

a decrease in the level of FiTs (RD 1565/2010). This
0.35
reduction ranged from 45% for utility PV installaP Industry /kWh
P EEX /kWh
P HH /kWh
tions to 5% for small rooftop installations. Further0.3
more, RD 1565/2010 limited the period over which
installed PV units can receive a FiT to 26 years. A
0.25
further limit to the number of equivalent hours per
year for PV support payments was introduced, with
0.2
differentiation depending on the location and tracking system.
0.15
In January 2012, the Spanish government
stopped the registration and support schemes for
0.1
new RES-E (RD-Law 1/2012). Later in July 2013,
through the RD 9/2013, the FiT for existing instal0.05
lations was substituted by a new remuneration
scheme for RES-E based on a fixed remuneration
0
per capacity installed that complements the revenues obtained from energy sales in the electricity
market. The supplemental fixed remuneration is
calculated to guarantee a rate of return of around figure 11. German electricity prices (€/kWh). The market price at
the electricity exchange (P EEX) 2000-2014, retail electricity prices
7.5% during the whole lifetime of the installation.
for households (P HH), and industry (P industry) 1999-2014. (Source:
The reforms to decrease the electricity deficit
EEX, EUROSTAT, de.statista.com.)
were criticized because some units are facing a
reduction of the payments with respect to initial agreements. at the system level, reducing the overall system welfare and
Different developers have sued the Spanish state because of increasing cross-subsidies between consumers.
these reforms.

The German Market
Germany started to implement support schemes for renewable
The cost of RES-E support schemes and the need to reduce generation in 1991. German renewable capacity and generation
the deficit have led to important increases in retail prices. As have grown ever since, making the country Europe's largest
shown in Figure 4, retail prices have increased by more than producer of renewable energy. Figure 10 illustrates this growth.
By 2013, Germany had installed roughly 85 GW of renew30% from 2007 to 2014 for residential consumers and by a
lower percentage to industrial consumers, who are partially able capacity, with the largest part being solar PVs and onshore
wind capacity. Due to Germany's topology, there are fewer
exempt from RES-E costs.
The Spanish retail electricity prices have the
following components: energy (€/kWh) and capac16
ity (€/kW), plus metering costs and taxes (a valueElectricity Tax
EEG-Surcharge
Concessions
added tax of 21% and electricity taxes of around
14
Generation, Transport, and Distribution
Other
5%). The energy charge has a component corresponding to pass-through of electricity wholesale
12
prices (with reference to the day-ahead, intraday
market prices and also incorporating balancing and
10
generation adequacy charges), plus an additional
energy component that is used to recover regulated
8
costs. As shown in Figure 9, the electricity tariffs
have changed repeatedly from 2012 to 2014, mostly
6
through increments in the capacity component
whereas the energy component has been reduced.
4
The design of retail prices is especially relevant
in the context of elastic demand due to cheaper dis2
tributed energy resources (DERs), such as distributed
generation (e.g., solar PVs, microcogeneration, and
0
fuel cells), demand-side management, and electric
vehicles, among others. An inefficient allocation of
the system costs can distort price signals and incen- figure 12. The composition of German retail electricity prices for industivize consumers to install DERs that are not efficient trial consumers in 1998-2013 (€ct/kWh). (Source: de.statista.com.)
july/august 2015