Spain’s disengagement from coal
Coal-fired plants closed following EU environmental regulations
“Termica de Aboño desde El Valle” by Dawlad Ast is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
In June 2020, seven Spanish coal-fired power plants stopped operating. That amounted to half of the operating power plants. They were assessed unviable as a result of European environmental standards and market conditions. The seven thermal plants were: Meirama (in Galicia), Narcea (Asturias) and La Robla (León) – all owned by Naturgy; Andorra (Teruel) and Compostilla (León) – run by Endesa; New Bridge (Córdoba), run by Viesgo; and Velilla (Palencia), run by Iberdrola. Other four plants – with a capacity of 3,092 MW and around 800 employees – had requested permits from the Government to close their facilities. These were the Lada plants (in Asturias, owned by Iberdrola), As Pontes (in Galicia, owned by Endesa), Los Barrios (in Andalusia, owned by Viesgo) and Litoral (in Andalusia, owned by Endesa).
Further reading
EL PAÍS (2020): España desconecta siete centrales térmicas y arranca el proceso para enterrar el carbón. Read here.
Funding
The CINTRAN project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 884539. The sole responsibility for the content of this website lies with the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of CINEA or other EU agencies or bodies.