CSP World

Spanish companies operating most of the Concentrated Solar Power plants in Spain have agreed to jointly file an appeal with the Supreme Court against the new regulatory framework in effect since January 1, 2013.

The appeal, which has been finally signed only by a bunch of companies that, however, hold most of the CSP sector in Spain -Abengoa, FCC, Sacyr, Elecnor, Samca and SENER-, was filed last April 15.

One of the big CSP companies in Spain, Acciona, finally refused to sign the appeal but has shown its fully support to the initiative. It’s been reported that Acciona considered having a different profile from the rest and will go on its own.

ACS, which operates the CSP plants through its subsidiary COBRA, also has not signed the lawsuit. Some other companies that have not taken part in this initiative are NextEra, Magtel, Aries or Ibereolica.

The appeal has been filed with the Supreme Court against a ‘Ministerial Order’ where Feed-in-Tariff for the so-called ‘special regime’, comprising renewables and co-generation, are published and updated annually.

CSP companies have decided to go this way, as no other options are available. The changes to the regulatory framework have been enacted with the status of law, and therefore, according to Spanish legislation, it cannot be appealed by individuals or companies but only by certain institutions.

Anyway, this appeal is unlikely to have a positive resolution since the ‘Ministerial Order’ merely applies the law in force. In previous litigations undertaken by the PV sector, whose FiT has been reduced several times, courts have turned down the lawsuit.

According to some Spanish medias, the agreement to jointly file the appeal has been a tough task. Companies involved have also different interests in other sectors and don’t want to strain relationships with the government.

This new regulatory framework, as previously reported by CSP World, comprises a 7% tax to whole income of CSP plants, a new reference index to update FiT annually, the withdrawal of the ‘pool + premium’ option, the removal of FiT to the amount of electricity attributable to burning natural gas.

As reported in a recent article published at CSP Today, revenues for Spanish CSP plants have dropped 20%, but it’s expected to go further, since one of the cuts has not been applied yet.

The six companies that have signed the lawsuit operate 28 plants out of the 45 currently in operation.