Renewables are 'force for peace' says Spain energy secretary

Spain’s energy secretary Joan Groizard today said that the conflict in Iran and its shockwaves across Europe could see renewable energy emerge as a peacemaker technology.

Speaking in Madrid, he said energy “has often defined the limits of sovereignty at a time of conflict. Fossil fuels have been at the heart of conflict. In the face of fossil fuel wars, renewable energy may actually be a force for peace.”

Spain has found itself the envy of much of Europe since the outbreak of the Iran conflict, as its successful deployment of renewables at scale has insulated it from the worst of the price shocks.

This resilience, said Groizard at the annual conference of WindEurope, has been delivered by years of strategic planning and the benefits were now being seen across Europe.

“We went from being in the top five most expensive European countries for household energy bills to being below the European average”, said Groizard, who was appointed secretary of state for energy in November 2024.

“This doesn't happen by chance,” he added. “This happens because of deliberate political, economic, and business decisions.”

And he said a key pillar of Spain’s energy strategy is to “electrify everything that's electrifiable. Because renewable generation in our electricity mix is an insurance policy that protects us from energy shocks. Let's extend that protection, that safety blanket, to the rest of the economy, from the macro, to the micro.”


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He said an acceleration of renewable deployment in Spain must be “fast and fair”, adding that although there is widespread approval of renewables in Spain, on too many occasions “when that crystallises into a specific project, in a particular location, we move from ‘yes’ to renewables to ‘yes, but’. Yes, but, it could be done differently; yes, but, it could be done somewhere else.

He said the aim of government was to “get rid of the ‘but’. And this means making the best projects go first and go fast, and for that we're prioritising the permitting of projects which will prove to be excellent from a social, community and environmental perspective.”

He said Spain expected to soon launch wind power tenders “prioritising the best locations from an environmental perspective”.

And Groizard, an engineer who began his career in the UK and is also vice-president of the Sustainable Energy Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, said it is time the gloves came off in Europe’s response to geopolitical events.

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“We need to mobilise the full firepower of the European project.

“Decisions taken in Moscow, in Tehran, in Tel Aviv, or on the other side of Atlantic, determine within seconds how much we will have to pay for our basic supplies.

“What sovereignty is there when our day-to-day fate is dictated elsewhere, not by chance, not by decision, but by energy dependence?

“What freedom is it when our position on the global stage, when our capacity to stand up, to call out unfair behaviour by others, is determined by what we buy and who we will buy it from?

“We are at a crossroads, and not any crossroads,” he said. “We are in an energy crisis worse than that of ’73, ’79 and 2022, all put together.

“If there was ever a time to max out on high impact immediate measures; a time for bold business decisions; a time with the potential to be a turning point, not just for Europe's energy system but for Europe's understanding of sovereignty… surely, the worst energy crisis in 50 years is that time.”