What is the More Energy Security Plan?

What are the main objectives of the +Energy Security Plan?

Three main objectives have been established for this plan:

• To increase protection for vulnerable groups, households and companies, through energy saving and a commitment to renewable energies.
• To consolidate strategic energy independence, by encouraging the structural changes included in the Strategic Framework for Energy and Climate.
• To promote solidarity with other EU countries. It seeks to maximise the existing infrastructure through energy solidarity at community level, and for the infrastructure to be created to meet decarbonisation targets in the medium and long term.

To summarise, the +Energy Security Plan aims to protect citizens from rising energy prices, promote energy savings, reduce consumption (especially of non-renewable energies) by improving the country's energy independence, gaining competitiveness and increasing energy exports.

How and why did the +Energy Security Plan come about?

The +Energy Security Plan came about as a response to the war in Ukraine and the restrictions on Russian gas in Europe, since the rise in energy prices affects everyone equally, both households and the industrial and business sector in the member states.

What measures does the +Energy Security Plan include?

The 73 measures are included in 6 sections: Savings and efficiency, transformation of the energy system, extension of protection to citizens (especially the vulnerable), fiscal measures, transformation of industry through renewable energies or hydrogen, and solidarity with the other European countries.

Here are some of the most significant features:

• Community boilers: In Spain there are an estimated 1.6 million homes with community boilers, which benefit from reductions in the amount they pay in their bills.
• Self-consumption: 500 million euros are available to promote projects with renewable energies that increase the volume of self-consumption.
• More information on energy consumption: More data on consumption are included in bills and by means of digital meters, so consumers are able to make decisions aimed at conscious and efficient consumption.
• Energy efficiency: Promoting energy efficiency in homes and companies, especially SMEs, with the participation of the ICO. There will also be savings plans in the administrations.
• Support for industry through by increasing the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE in Spanish) for Renewable Energies, Renewable Hydrogen and Storage by €1,000 million. A new version of the PERTE for the Decarbonisation of Industry has also been announced.
• Making infrastructures more flexible to promote renewable energies.
• Providing greater protection for vulnerable consumers, with increased discounts on their electricity bills.
• Tax measures: Reduction of the VAT on natural gas to 5% (RDL 17/2022), in addition to tax incentives for solutions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energies.
• Solidarity with the EU: An 18% increase in export capacity to France, the activation of the Musel regasification plant (Asturias) and starting up the Iberian hydrogen corridor.

What has been the impact of the +Energy Security Plan so far?

Even though some of the objectives cannot be assessed in the short term, a number of milestones have been reached. For example, the +Energy Security Plan proposed a reduction of national gas consumption of between 5.1% and 13.5% between August 2022 and March 2023. With the data from August to February 2023, gas consumption decreased by 19% in Spain, if we compare it with the same period in the last five years.