Energy policies in Andorra
Energy policies in Andorra are shaped by the country's geographic and political context, being landlocked and dependent on Spain and France for energy supplies. Historically, Andorra produced hydropower, with the Andorran Hydroelectric Power Station once meeting domestic energy needs while exporting surplus energy. However, by the 1970s, this capacity could not keep up with growing demand, leading to significant reliance on imported electricity and oil products today. Approximately 71% of the current energy supply comes from oil, with only a small fraction generated from renewable sources.
Recognizing the need for change, Andorra has been developing domestic energy policies focused on rational consumption and increasing the use of renewables, influenced in part by European Union guidelines aiming for low-carbon economies. The country has initiated projects like the Just Transition project, which plans to transform existing coal infrastructure into renewable energy facilities, including hybrid photovoltaic plants and wind farms. The establishment of the Board of Energy is a key component of this strategy, promoting energy efficiency and sustainability. These efforts reflect Andorra's commitment to reducing its energy dependency and addressing global climate challenges.
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Energy policies in Andorra
Official Name: Principality of Andorra.
Summary: Andorra is a 290-square-mile (468-square-kilometer), landlocked country highly dependent on Spain and France. Energy issues are affected by this dependency, as well as by European Union energy policies. The country is developing domestic policies based on rational consumption and renewable energies.
Although it is a small country, Andorra enjoyed a political status of independence and sovereignty even before Spain became a nation-state under the aegis of the Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in the 16th century. Andorra was a medieval earldom linked to the earls of Barcelona, although it enjoyed its own consuetudinary legal system and political independence. The heads of its parliamentary political system have been the president of France (formerly the king of France) and the bishop of Urgell in Catalonia (Spain) since the Middle Ages.
Placed on the border between France and Spain, Andorra has long been known as a tax haven where Spaniards and French from neighboring cities traveled to buy cheaper electronic devices, tobacco, and furniture, among other goods. Tourism is now the country’s most significant source of income; given its geographic location at the heart of the Pyrenees, the natural border between France and the Iberian Peninsula, Andorra enjoys a beautiful landscape as well as a healthy economy, its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita being one of the highest in the world. The combination of a flourishing economy and a shortage of domestic sources of energy accounts for the nation’s unbalanced imports and exports of certain commodities such as electricity and oil products. Energy supplies have traditionally been secured directly from Spain and France in the form of electricity generated mainly by French nuclear reactors or oil products from Spanish and French refineries.
Nevertheless, Andorra was not always dependent on energy imports; the country was once a relevant producer of energy by hydropower within Europe. In the early 1930s, the Andorran Hydroelectric Power Station was built, and it soon started to export almost all the energy produced at that site through high-voltage lines connected first to Spain and later to France. At that point, Andorran domestic consumption of energy was sufficiently covered by the Hydroelectric Power Station to allow these exports. However, in the 1970s the station’s annual production could not cope with domestic demand for electricity, and currently its production represents only 15 percent of total domestic consumption.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, electricity production in Andorra amounted to approximately 7,340 terajoules (TJ). Of that total, roughly 1,884 TJ was sourced from renewable energy. Of the remaineder, 71 percent was sourced from oil, while 3 percent was sourced from coal and other fuels.
In 1988, the semipublic entity Forces Électriques d’Andorra was created in order to organize and rationalize the production of electric energy within the country’s borders. This corporation is nowadays immersed in a process of modernizing its various sites in an effort to increase domestic production of electricity and thereby reduce the negative impact of dependence.
Additionally, the ambitious policies on energy issues that have been developed and implemented by the European Union (EU) have had an inevitable effect on Andorra’s own policies. The main EU guidelines concern measures to promote low-carbon economies in an effort to diminish the EU’s contribution to global warming, reduce dependence on imports of gas and oil, and shelter member nations’ economies from volatile energy prices and uncertain supplies. Andorra is helping to meet those praiseworthy challenges by strengthening the country’s reliance on renewable energies, as demonstrated by the creation of the Board of Energy (Taula d’Energia), which is designing an energy strategy based on both energy efficiency and renewable energies.
During the 2020s, Andorra launched the Just Transition project, which involves converting the region's 1050 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant into a 1,800 MW renewable energy hub. To achieve this goal, Andorra planned to construct seven hybrid photovoltaic plants, seven wind farms, two energy storage plants, and an electrolyzer to generate hydrogen. The project won the Energy Transitions Changemakers award at COP28 in 2023.
Bibliography
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"Energy Profile: Andorra." International Renewable Energy Agency, 2020, www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Statistics/Statistical‗Profiles/Europe/Andorra‗Europe‗RE‗SP.pd. Accessed 30 July 2024.