Spanish regulations establish that the construction of generation plants (and the facilities or connection nodes associated with them) require Administrative Authorization as per Law 24/2013, Art. 53a). i.e., Preliminary administrative authorization to prove that the proposed facilities comply with the necessary technical and security standards as well as an environmental impact assessment, also, the location of the facilities is consistent with land planning requirements. However, this could only be granted if a Grid access and connection permit was previously obtained (see NCMC circular 1/2021 of 20 January for further requirements) and, depending on the infrastructure, various other permits could be necessary, such as planning requirements, municipal activity licenses or water authorisation, for instance.
The construction of new energy production plants is also subject to strict environmental control, and an environmental impact assessment must be undertaken to assess how the plant affects the surroundings and the actions to be taken to prevent and mitigate the risk of environmental damage. This must be presented to the appropriate authority (usually at the regional level), and an Integrated Environmental Authorisation (IEA) is issued, which establishes the environmental conditions that the generation plant must comply with.
The IEA process was temporarily sped up by Royal Decree-Law 20/2022, Art. 22 & 23, by an express authorisation procedure covering all sizes of RES installations up to 31st December 2024