43% of requests to connect new homes to the electricity grid are not attended to due to lack of system capacity

Connection to the electrical grid is essential to carry out new housing developments, works that for many are key to tackling the housing emergency and mitigating the rise in prices. The brick sector frequently denounces that the shortage of labor and the slowness of permits and urban developments are hindering the construction of housing, obstacles to which the electrical employers’ association Aelec adds the difficulties in hooking up new buildings. 43% of access and connection requests made in 2024 by housing developers could not be attended to due to “lack of capacity” of the network itself, as stated by Aelec’s regulatory director, Marta Castro, this Monday at an informative breakfast.

“These are somewhat alarming data,” acknowledged Castro, who pointed out that the problem lies in the saturation of the distribution system. Aelec calculates that currently the network is at more than 87% of its capacity. “This is preventing the connection of many housing developments. The reality is worrying,” insisted the director of regulation. As explained, the volume of requests from housing developers that the sector accumulates is around 6.4 gigawatts, of which approximately 1.3 GW are granted, 1.6 GW are in processing and 3 GW are not being attended to. “The percentage of withdrawal from the promoter himself is very small. “The problem is that there is no capacity on the network.”Castro reiterated.

Faced with this situation, the electrical employers’ association is demanding adequate regulation and an effort to reorient the part of the network that is “idle” towards new needs, such as housing developments. It is not the first time that electricity distribution companies denounce the saturation of the network and the difficulties in supplying new demands. To increase investment, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, announced in mid-September two projects to increase investment in the network, with the aim of connecting new industrial projects, data centers, transport facilities and also urban projects.

From Aelec they point out that the connection requests show the “appetite” to electrify homes, a task that concerns not only the new developments, but also the existing park. According to a report presented this Monday by Aelec and Deloitte, homes in Spain consume 18% of the country’s energy expenditure and are responsible for 8% of greenhouse gas emissions. “The residential sector must triple the rate of emissions reduction of recent years to meet the objectives,” Laureano Álvarez, partner at Deloitte, explained at the informative breakfast regarding the report, which indicates that Spain has to go from an emissions reduction rate of 1.8% annually between 2019 and 2022 to exceed 6% in the remainder of the decade.

The National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) provided for some 1.37 million home renovations between 2020 and 2030 to reduce the energy consumption of the Spanish residential stock, an objective that is being reviewed. The Ministry of Housing brought to public hearing on Friday the first draft of the new National Building Renovation Plan 2026-2030 (PNRE), which sets goals a 25% reduction in emissions by 2030 and 33% by 2035which they estimate will require 1.57 million deep rehabilitations to be carried out.

According to the analysis by Deloitte and Aelec, 37% of the energy consumption of homes in Spain still comes from fossil fuels. Most of the energy used by homes goes to air conditioning. Specifically, the 40% is used to maintain an adequate temperature and more than half of the systems continue to run on fossil fuels: 30% with diesel and 25% with natural gas, compared to 11% with electricity. “The weight of electricity is still relatively low,” explained Álvarez, inviting contributions to heat pumps as one of the most efficient systems to advance the electrification of homes. It is estimated that for every energy unit consumed by these systems, they return between 3 and 5 in the form of heat or cold.

“The heat pump is a mature, efficient and low-polluting technology, with a wide range of costs,” said Álvarez, who pointed out that they can range between 7,000 and 21,000 euros. The Deloitte partner has clarified that the heterogeneity of the housing stock makes it necessary to find the most appropriate solution to improve the efficiency of each property, depending on where it is located, its age, its dimensions or its characteristics.

One of the problems that the study detects to advance the electrification of the residential park is that electricity has a less competitive price than gas. “Today electricity is 2.5 times more expensive than gas for Spanish households, the large part due to a greater burden of charges and taxes, which represent 30-45% of the price,” said the author of the report, which advocates reducing the cost of electricity with “fairer” taxation, maintaining tax incentives and rehabilitation aid for the most vulnerable households and carrying out awareness and education campaigns, as well as improving the electrical network with “more flexible” planning, anticipating new needs – for example, associated with new urban developments -, expedite permits and guarantee regulatory stability.