Self-Consumption Roundtable in Castilla y León

The 2019 electricity regulation in Spain introduced significant changes to self-consumption rules, impacting administrative, technical, and economic conditions. Given the many stakeholders involved—national, regional, and local authorities, electricity distributors, traders, manufacturers, engineers, installers, and users—widespread information and training efforts were essential.

The regulation marked a turning point by eliminating fees on self-consumed energy, introducing new legal frameworks, enabling bill compensation for surplus energy, and allowing collective self-consumption. It also streamlined administrative procedures for grid access, installation legalisation, and stakeholder communication. However, these advancements required navigating complex new processes.

In response to the new self-consumption framework, the Regional Government of Castilla y León, through its regional energy agency EREN, launched the Self-Consumption Roundtable. This regional forum serves as a platform for debate, discussion, and analysis, bringing together key stakeholders, including relevant Regional Government departments (Housing, Environment, Energy, and Industry), the Regional Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, major electricity distributors and traders, regional and national installers’ associations, all energy agencies in Castilla y León, and the Regional Federation of Professional Associations of Technical Engineers. The Roundtable aims to identify and remove barriers while accelerating and strengthening the development of the self-consumption sector in the region.

As a result of the Roundtable’s efforts, several resources were developed and published in a dedicated section of the Regional Government’s energy website. These included guides on administrative processing for self-consumption, urban and environmental aspects, recommendations for users and designers, leaflets, videos for general information, contract templates, and updated regulatory information to speed up urban planning licenses.

Since its launch, the initiative has attracted over 70,000 visitors to the website. With the new regulations and other supporting framework, the installed self-consumption photovoltaic power in Castilla y León has increased 36-fold over the past five years.

Replicated in other Spanish regions, this initiative has boosted distributed, renewable, and accessible energy. It has resulted in energy and economic savings for homes and industries, created qualified jobs, supported population retention in rural areas, and stimulated economic activity – all reducing CO2 emissions.

The visibility of these efforts has been further enhanced by EREN’s installation of self-consumption systems in the buildings of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, co-financed by the ERDF 2021–2027 Operational Programme.

This best practice is extracted from our publication ‘Sustainable Regions in Action‘. Discover more best practices here!