Comentario al Real decreto ley 23/2020 de 23 de junio por el que se aprueban medidas en materia de energía y en otros ámbitos para la reactivación económica

Abstract

The purpose of this work is the study of the legislative developments included in the recent Royal Decree-Law 23/2020 of June 23, which approves measures in the field of energy and in other areas for economic recovery. These measures respond to the urgent purpose of trying to alleviate as soon as possible the effects of the serious economic recession caused by the Covid-19 health crisis that has suddenly shaken our country and the entire world. Combining both contexts, namely the climate emergency and the health and economic crisis, the Government proposes energy policy as a major protagonist and engine, the socalled "green lever" of economic and employment recovery, while trying to fulfill with the inescapable international commitments. The Royal Decree-Law under study has been approved within the framework of the parliamentary procedure of the Climate Change Law which has suffered an undesirable delay due to an amendment to the entirety, the Government deciding to accommodate within a Royal Decree-Law the approval of an abundant battery of measures that, due to the urgency in their implementation, had to be agreed as soon as possible in view of the need to put all possible means to promote economic recovery. In general, these are changes and novelties that respond to proposals that are highly demanded by the renewable energy sector, which, in general terms, applauds their adequacy, although, it should be said that these changes come late and out of time, especially taking into account that there are already several autonomous communities that have approved their own Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition. Thus, for example, Catalonia with Law 16/2017 of August 1, developed in the field of renewable energy through Decree-Law 16/2019 of November 26, Andalusia with Law 8/2018 of October 8 and the Balearic Islands with Law 10/2019 of February 22; as well as others such as the Basque Country and Valencia that are processing their draft Climate Change and Energy Transition Law. In the present work, we will analyze in detail the following measures: the new access and connection regulation to avoid speculation based on the technical feasibility and soundness of the projects; the new competitive competition mechanism for renewable energy projects, and auctions, trying to provide these technologies again with a predictable and stable remuneration framework; improving and simplifying the processing of authorization procedures for the construction, expansion, modification and operation of electrical production, transport and distribution facilities; the inclusion of the concept of nonsubstantial modification of generation facilities that have obtained administrative authorization in such a way that they must only obtain the operating authorization, prior accreditation of compliance with the safety conditions of the facilities and associated equipment; the incorporation of the criteria for the consideration of the same generation facility for the purposes of access and connection permits; the promotion of new business models; measures related to storage, independent aggregators, renewable energy communities, hybridization, high capacity recharging infrastructures (>250kW), simplified authorization of R+D+i projects, regulatory test benches, simplified authorization of mobile network facilities, optimizing the use of the access capacity granted; improving energy efficiency by adapting the procedure for calculating the savings obligations of each obligated subject to provide the system with greater transparency and predictability for obligated subjects; the reform of the Environmental Assessment Law in order to streamline the procedures related to the scope document and the extensions of the environmental impact assessment and report, equating the regulation of these last two figures and, lastly, to ensure balance and liquidity in the electricity system, a necessary requirement for the continuity of activity and the promotion of new investments and, therefore, the success of the energy transition.