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Portugal

 

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Current Situation
Portugal is a country with scarce indigenous energy resources, namely, those which ensure the general energy needs of the majority of developed countries (such as oil, coal and gas). However, Portugal is in an ideal position to take advantage of prevailing winds off the Atlantic Ocean and it is one of the Europe’s countries with best conditions in solar energy. The average annual number of hours of sun varies between 2200 and 3000 in the continent, and between 1700 and 2200, respectively, in the Azores and Madeira. Also, the potential coastline to install offshore windfarms and wave energy facilities is higher than 250 km.

Portugal’s shortage in primary energy sources leads to a significant external dependence (82.9% in 2007) which accounts on being dependent on imports of primary sources of fossil origin, therefore the contribution of hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and waste, must be increased.

In the last years there has been a growth in installed RES capacity for electricity production, having reached 7645 MW in 2007, of which 4883 MW is hydro, 507 MW is biomass, 2201 MW is wind, 30 MW is geothermal and 24 MW is photovoltaic. Electricity production from RES reached 16861 GWh in 2007.

Perspectives
The Government is engaged in reducing the strong external energy dependence, increasing energy efficiency, reducing CO2 emissions, improving service quality and stimulating competition through the adoption of an organisational model for the energy sector’s undertakings with public capital.

Currently, the Portuguese Government follows the National Energy Strategy of 2005. The Strategy determines the main policy guidelines and most relevant measures for the energy sector. The main goals are to guarantee the security of the energy supply, to stimulate and favour competitiveness and to ensure the complete environmental sustainability of the energy process.

In Portugal, the promotion system for electricity from RES is a price regulation in terms of a feed-in tariff, and they also have fiscal regulation mechanisms.
Wind Power: Their goal is to increase the installed capacity production by 1,950 MW in 2012, reaching a total of 5,100 MW.
Hydropower: Their short-term objective is to reach the goal of 5,575 MW of capacity installed for water power by 2010 (575 MW more than previous energy policies had stipulated).
Biomass: The goals are to increase the installed capacity target for 2010 by 100 MW (67% increase).
Solar: Portugal has the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm, The Moura Solar Farm. The second phase of the plant will be completed in 2010 and the capacity will be further increase by 20MW.
Waves: the goal is to increase the installed capacity by 200 MW through the creation of a Pilot Zone with an exploitation potential of up to 250 MW with emergent prototypes of industrial and pre-commercial technological developments. Portugal opened the world’s first commercial wave farm in 2008, the Aguçadora Wave Park, which uses Pelamis P-750 to generate a total of 2.25MW.
Biogas: They have established a 100 MW target of installed capacity for anaerobic waste treatment units.
Micro-generation: A promotion programme to install 50,000 systems until 2010, with installation incentives for water heating systems based on solar energy in existing houses.

Key Players
In Portugal, there are public and also private entities which have the aim of promote and development the renewable energy. Some of them are the following:
 The definition of energy policy is set by the Directorate General of Geology and Energy (DGGE). For production in the special regime, which includes renewable energy, some responsibilities are shared with Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE), which is a public corporate body provided with administrative and financial autonomy of its own as well as its own assets, its purpose being the regulation of the natural gas and electricity sectors.
 INETI (the National Institute of Engineering, Technology and Innovation, I.P) is the largest public sector R&D institution in Portugal, focused on providing services to the private sector. INETI approaches the energy sector from a perspective of establishing its position as a technological support institution for state policies in this field, interacting with the private sector and bringing about innovation in energy policies.

Other entities are ADENE, the Portuguese Association of Energy and EDP, the third largest renewable energy operator in the Iberian Peninsula and the fourth largest player in wind energy in the world.

Job demand
According to the EWEA study developed in 2007, the number of direct jobs in wind energy sector in Portugal is 800 and, if the sector get the goal established by the Government, 5,100 MW in 2012, it is estimated the creation of 2,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs in the sector.