Characterization of Production under feed-in tariffs in Portugal Mainland

Abstract

EDP Serviço Universal (EDP SU), in its core business, must ensure the purchase of energy from producers under special regime and distributed production, with feed-in tariffs, and sell it through spot and future markets. Furthermore, the company must ensure the purchase of energy in those markets for the supply of its customers. The process of buying and selling electricity is quite complex from the legislative and regulatory point of view. In Portugal, over the last two and a half decades, high focus on the promotion of renewable energies has been set, particularly through power plants with feed-in tariffs, which has increased the use of internal energy resources and has stimulated the reduction of the country’s energy dependence. During this process, the development of related legislation and the dynamism of the sector, with the introduction of incentives which prompted the investment and promoted the maturation of new technologies, has been essential. The present work characterizes the producers to whom EDP SU purchases energy, with emphasis on technologies, number of installations, installed power, geographic location and acquired energy, showing the evolution over last years.