Royal Decree 997/2025 includes some of the provisions of the so-called anti-blackout reform that was not ratified by Congress this summer due to the political tactics of certain parliamentary groups.
Measures are introduced to speed up the deployment of hybridised storage and the repowering of renewable installations.
The development of certain key measures left out of RDL 7/2025 is still necessary.
Madrid, 6 November 2025.- Fundación Renovables welcomes the Government’s approval of Royal Decree 997/2025 with urgent measures to strengthen the electricity system. This is undoubtedly a necessary reform that recovers part of the provisions of Royal Decree-Law 7/2025, the so-called anti-blackout reform that was not ratified in the Congress of Deputies due to the political tactics of certain parliamentary groups, despite unanimous support from companies, social organisations, trade unions and civil society as a whole.
This reform advances several issues aimed at improving supervision and voltage control in the electricity system, strengthening the functions of the National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) and the System Operator (Red Eléctrica – REE).
It also introduces improvements to promote energy storage, which must reach 22.5 GW by 2030 according to the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) and which, to date, has barely been present in the country’s energy system. The Royal Decree introduces a declaration of urgency on grounds of public interest and halves the deadlines, together with an exemption from environmental processing provided that the storage system is located within the perimeter of the plant. This facilitates the hybridisation of photovoltaic plants with batteries, allowing the latter to be installed quickly as long as they are located on the land where the renewable installation already exists, that is, in an anthropised area.
However, this Royal Decree does not develop all the capacities needed to optimise operation and market participation, as it does not include priority in redispatch for storage, including hybridisation. Nor does it ensure that permits are flexible from the demand perspective, avoiding storage being considered a pure consumer.
The Royal Decree published this Thursday in the Official State Gazette (BOE) introduces improvements to encourage the connection of new industrial activities to the grid, which will facilitate the electrification of the sector. Other regulatory changes in the same direction are aimed at limiting response times for distributors when launching grid extensions. This will benefit the electrification of the economy and, above all, the distributed deployment of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Deadlines are also set for companies to speed up the processing of new grid connections on urban land.
Finally, the Government has included in this Royal Decree a mandate to draw up, within nine months of its approval, a roadmap for the repowering of renewable-energy installations, a necessary step to ensure that wind farms reaching the end of their useful life can be renewed with more modern technology. In the case of wind power, this not only means replacing one wind turbine with another, but using new technology that reduces the number of turbines while generating more electricity, thereby minimising the landscape impacts of these facilities, which sometimes raise concerns in certain areas of the country.
Despite this progress, key issues remain pending, such as the development of a flexibility framework, the regulation of independent aggregation services, the simplification of authorisation for electrical supply infrastructure for charging stations and the amendment of the Horizontal Property Law to facilitate the installation of aerothermal and geothermal systems in residents’ associations, among others.
Fundación Renovables considers this reform positive, although we urge the Government to continue approving new packages of measures that bring together all the essential reforms of the anti-blackout Royal Decree-Law.
