Gemma Bastida I Málaga, (EFE).- Spain could be climate neutral before 2050. The European Commission plans that by 2050 all Member States will achieve carbon neutrality, but Spain could achieve that goal before that date if it makes the investments necessary, carries out the appropriate policy and takes advantage of its enormous potential in clean energy, Juan Miguel Morales, a researcher at the University of Malaga (UMA), told EFE.
Morales (Granada, 1982), Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Science and Engineering 2023, assures that Spain is reaching the “new industrial revolution with natural resources in its favour”. Since it is a great wind and solar power and can become the main “hub” (connection point) of renewable energies in southern Europe.
Spain is on its way to being “the vanguard in the world in this sense”, Morales points out. That he emphasizes that Spain has “many resources to export.” But to do so it needs to stop being an “energy island” and be well connected to the rest of Europe through neighboring France.
“That’s where the role of politics comes in,” underlines this doctor of industrial engineering, who believes that, for once, Spain “has a strategic starting position.”
Towards the 50% level in 2023
According to Red Eléctrica, renewables could reach 50% of all electricity production in Spain by 2023. The highest figure in the series in history, after registering a level of 42.5% in 2022.
“We are at very significant levels. This is truly a milestone and we are doing it with hardly any support from the systems of our European neighbours”, highlights the expert.
The objective of Europe is that in 2050 the member countries have an energy system without a carbon footprint. But Spain “could be able to achieve it even sooner,” maintains the UMA professor, “if it works politically to achieve it.” Sufficient investment is being made and aid is being promoted for the installation of renewables, both among large companies and among small consumers.
Morales recalls that the most competitive renewable energies currently are solar and wind. Although there are others less established such as geothermal or biomass.
Energy paradigm shift
Juan Miguel Morales has founded and leads the OASYS research group at the UMA. That he works on the development of the necessary tools to make it possible for the electricity sector to transition without incident from fossil fuels to renewables.
And it is that “everything, absolutely everything”, works today with electricity, recalls the expert. So it is extremely important that this paradigm shift is carried out without service interruptions. And maintaining the current quality standards.
As Morales explains, the problem is that renewables are variable and uncertain in nature. Because sometimes the wind blows and sometimes it doesn’t, in the same way that it’s not always sunny. They are variable energy sources and very difficult to predict, so that “they are not always available,” he says.
“That implies changing the way in which the electricity sector operates, and that is what we are dedicated to investigating, the tools that must be provided to companies and market players so that they can be able to replace fossil fuels with renewable ones. And that the system continues to function without the people finding out, ”he points out.
a successful career
Through the development of complex mathematical and engineering models, Morales’s mission is to facilitate and accelerate this transition. Collaborating with energy companies and small agents in the sector.
Juan Miguel Morales has been researching in this field for more than fifteen years and his work, which has become a reference in the sector, has been recognized with numerous distinctions. Such as the Young Investigator Award granted by the Royal Academy of Engineering or the recent Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Science and Engineering.
The expert graduated in 2006 as an industrial engineer from the UMA. And in 2010 he received his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Castilla-La Mancha.
After a first stage at the University of Denmark, where he was a tenured professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, in 2016 he joined the University of Malaga, where he founded the OASYS group.
Morales is a recipient of the prestigious ERC Starting Grant and author of pioneering studies in Mathematical Engineering aimed at decarbonizing the energy sector. EFE