The Renewable Foundation regrets that the reform of the electricity system, through Royal Decree 7/2025, was rejected by Congress with the dissenting votes of Podemos, BNG, Vox, Junts, and the PP. Its approval was essential after the blackout that occurred on April 28, and its provisions included essential measures to advance toward a fair and distributed energy transition.
The Royal Decree, while not perfect, included essential measures, such as expanding the radius for sharing self-consumption energy from 2 to 5 kilometers .
Furthermore, the text contemplated the creation of a self-consumption manager, which would guarantee the existence of a natural or legal person to act as a mediator and represent the interests of consumers associated with self-consumption, streamlining procedures and safeguarding their rights.
This was a long-standing demand of energy communities, cooperatives, and citizens with solar roofs. Furthermore, other reforms necessary to strengthen the electricity system have been left unfinished , such as the declaration of public utility for energy storage, whether stand-alone or hybridized with renewable energy plants.
In this area, procedures were streamlined to promote a technology that is key to providing security, but also to lowering prices and providing flexibility to the system.
The Royal Decree was also essential to lighten the bureaucratic burden that has left numerous wind power projects hanging in the balance, especially in Galicia.
This reform is intended to facilitate the repowering of wind farms, eliminating the need to create a new EIA from scratch, allowing wind farms to be repowered to submit a differential impact statement between the characteristics of the previous wind farm and the repowered one. Measures aimed at speeding up the electrification of transport and the expansion of charging stations are also up in the air .
The Royal Decree limited the maximum period for activating new infrastructure to five days, provided it does not require cable extensions.
In that case, the deadline is set at 30 days, and 60 days if a transformer station is required.
Regarding the operation, the Royal Decree-Law established that renewables can be compensated for being active to control voltage , in addition to adjusting the new regulations so they can act with grid forming to stabilize the system.
This measure is essential to ensure that security of supply does not remain in the hands of fossil fuels. The blocking position of the parties is incomprehensible , especially that of deputies from progressive parties such as Podemos and the BNG, who, according to their electoral manifestos, have defended self-consumption and a more decentralized energy model.
The blocking position of the PP a party that presents itself as a "state party" which has shelved a reform essential for the country's future, is also incomprehensible.
The Renewable Foundation itself acknowledged that this Royal Decree was not perfect and mentioned some shortcomings, such as the need for renewable energy facilities subject to RECORE to count all their hours, including negative and zero-priced ones.
However, the legislative text as a whole has a very positive balance, making its rejection incomprehensible. This should have been a starting point for continuing to promote further reforms that would improve our electricity system, not an excuse to maintain the logic of polarization. The Renewable Foundation regrets the lack of sufficient consensus to advance a reform crucial to Spain's energy future and, above all, one that reflects the demands of virtually all social, environmental, and economic stakeholders involved in the ecological transition.
In recent months, following the events of April 28, various organizations with very different perspectives have supported many of the measures included in this Royal Decree Law.
From environmental and social organizations to renewable energy sector associations, unions, and consumer federations, all of them supported a manifesto in June to move forward with the renewable energy commitment .