Preliminary Report 2009

Introduction

Presented in this preliminary report is the provisional statistical data regarding the behaviour of the Spanish electricity system during 2009.

Peninsular system

• The demand for electrical energy on the Spanish peninsula was 251,305 GWh, 4.6% less than in 2008. This fall represents the first negative annual rate of demand since 1985, when the evolution of the demand first started to be recorded. Factoring in the effects of seasonal and working patterns, the annual fall was 4.3%.
• This notable fall is the result of the accumulative negative rates registered in every month this year, a year in which there have been two differentiated periods. A period of sharp decline, which culminated in April with the largest fall (11.8%) and second period that began a month after and during which more moderate falls were recorded, which resulted in a cummulative negative rate of 2.3% for the May-December period.
• Maximum average hourly power demand and daily power values reached 44,440 MW and 886 GWh on 13 January respectively. These values surpassed the corresponding values recorded in 2008 by 3.4% and 4.6% respectively and are around 1% below the historic values registered in 2007.
• Installed power had a net increase of 2,682 MW, representing an increase of 3% compared to the previous year. This increase was due to the integration of 568 MW coming from new combined cycle facilities and principally, 2,576 MW coming from new wind power facilities, whose capacity reached 18,119 MW by the end of the year. Regarding de-commissioning, two fuel-fired generation units (with a combined power of 474 MW) were closed.
• Producible hydroelectric energy reached 21,033 GWh, 25% down on the historic average, but 11.9% up on the 2008 value. The water reserves in the reservoirs finished the year around 43% of their total capacity, compared to 39% the previous year.
• Regarding generation balance, 2009 was characterised by a general fall in almost all the technologies which comprise the ordinary regime and whose production has decreased by 12.7% with respect to the previous year, absorbing the entire fall in the demand. On the other hand, the special regime increased its production by 18.3%.
• Regarding demand coverage, noteworthy was the increase in the role played by renewable energies which this year have covered, according to provisional data, 26% of the demand, compared to 24% in 2008. Analysing this data per technologies, one can observe the higher growth registered for wind power and solar energy whose contribution to the demand coverage increased to 13% and 3% respectively, (11% and 1% in 2008). At the other end of the scale are the coal-fired facilities, which reduced their production by 25.8%, covering just 12% of the demand, leading to the fact that, for the first time in history, wind power energy exceeded the contribution of coal in the coverage of the demand.
• On several occasions in 2009, wind energy exceeded the previous historic highs for instantaneous power, hourly power and daily power. On 8 November, new historic highs in wind power production were recorded of 251,543 MWh, a production which covered 44.9 of the electricity demand for that day. Similarly, in November, a monthly maximum of wind energy was produced, covering 22.7% of the demand for that month, surpassing the contribution of nuclear (19.5%) for the first time ever. Nevertheless, the highly variable nature of wind power led to extreme situations, such as the case of 8 November (at 03:59) when 53.7% of demand was covered by wind power, whilst on 27 August (at 09:49) it barely covered 1% of total consumption.
• The fall in electricity consumption, on one hand, and the increase in renewable energies,as well as a lower production level from coal fired plants, on the other, have contributed to the reduction of CO² emissions within the electricity sector reaching an estimated 74.5 million tonnes this year, 15.5% less than 2008.
• The balance of international exchanges registered a net export value of 8,398 GWh, 23.9% lower than 2008. This decrease is the result of the evolution of exports that showed a fall of 11%, similarly imports increased 13.2%.
• In 2009, the electricity transmission grid increased by 439 km, which means that at the end of the year the Spanish peninsular transmission grid had circuits totalling 35,073 km. Also, 3,400 MVA of transformer capacity was commissioned during 2009.

Extra-peninsular systems

• The annual demand for electrical energy for the whole of the extra-peninsular systems grew to 15,569 GWh, showing a decrease of 1.9% compared to the previous year. In the Canary Islands, the fall was 2.1% and in the Balearic Islands it was 1.9%, whereas Ceuta and Melilla registered a growth of 1.8% and 1.5% respectively.

Provisional data: year and results based on forescast data. Drafting date: December 21st, 2009.