The collapse in Spanish coal-fired generation this year has made the country's planned coal phaseout program look academic, data from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, or ENTSO-E, shows.
Spanish coal-fired generation is likely to have its lowest share of the generating mix ever in 2019, having covered just 6% of it up until the end of August as the impact of CO2 costs, competitive gas prices and increasing renewables force it out.
Spain has around 10 GW of operational coal plants left. Much of this looks set to close mid-2020 under the EU's industrial emissions directive, while the remainder should be gone by 2025.
As in the U.K., however, the technology is already surplus to requirements for large periods of time. Only four coal units generated any electricity in the first half of September, with output averaging around 15 GWh/day — a fraction of the 133 GWh/day a year earlier.
Of the four, only the 562-MW Abono 2 unit was in operation for the full two weeks under review, down from nine a year earlier.
June 2020 cutoff
Abono, operated by EDP - Energias de Portugal SA, is one of four plants lined up to continue operating after the June 2020 cutoff for plants to either carry out pollution control upgrades or close down permanently.
According to Spanish coal industry group Carbunion, Abono and EDP's other plant at Soto de la Ribera have captive industrial customers adjacent to the plants that make ongoing operations more viable.
Of the other three plants generating in in September, Viesgo Infraestructuras Energeticas SL's Puentenuevo is expected to close next year, Teruel is slated for closure, while the future for As Pontes 3 remains uncertain.
According to a report in local newspaper La Voz de Galicia, As Pontes' operator Endesa SA has halted conversion work on units 3 and 4 as it reconsiders the plant's future. Endesa declined to comment on the report.

Feedstock exports
Low utilization rates have caused a jump in Spanish coal exports to Italy, Morocco and Algeria.
For the year to May, Spain had exported 162,356 Mt of coal to Morocco, 8,000 Mt to Algeria and 18,000 Mt to Italy — increases of over fourfold, eightfold and a thousand fold year on year, respectively.
Some of the coal has been reported by market sources to have been sent to Moroccan coal-fired plants, which operate outside the EU Emissions Trading System. Production from these plants is being exported to the Iberian market via a subsea interconnector, pushing Morocco-Spain exports up to 220 GWh in March alone, more than was exported in the whole of 2018.
Gas, wind and solar
By contrast, the increasing price of CO2 in the EU combined with bearish natural gas prices has relegated coal to also-ran status in the thermal generation stakes. Gas-fired output has boomed, while Spain's solar and wind fleets are undergoing their own revivals as an end-2019 deadline approaches for around 8 GW of renewable capacity to be installed under government auction rules.
While there has been some localized resistance to coal closures much of the industry is moving on, with Endesa submitting plans to replace lost generation with 1.3 GW of renewable capacity at closing plant locations.
On the supply side, Spain effectively halted its own production of coal at the start of this year, leaving just Hunosa, which uses the fuel for its 50-MW experimental generating plant at Pereda.
Coal production is expected to be near zero for 2019 compared to peaks of nearly 40 million Mt/year, achieved in the 1980s. "This is the only industry whose future has been decided, even if it's negative," a Spanish coal industry source said.
Henry Edwardes-Evans and Gianluca Baratti, who contributed to this article, are reporters with S&P Global Platts. S&P Global Market Intelligence and S&P Global Platts are owned by S&P Global Inc.
