Measures included in Spanish Royal Decree-Law 7/2026 for the agile and socially integrated deployment of renewable energy

Royal Decree-Law 7/2026 of 20 March, approving the Comprehensive Plan for Responding to the Crisis in the Middle East (RDL), published in the Official State Gazette on 21 March 2026, sets out a series of measures aimed at the deployment of renewable energy and energy storage. This is on the premise that such deployment must ensure environmental protection, the appropriate territorial integration of facilities, and the generation of social and economic benefits in the regions where the projects are implemented.

In this regard, a series of urgent measures are regulated to help streamline this process. However, although they were introduced with this sense of urgency, many of the measures described below are still awaiting regulatory development and are therefore not immediately applicable. At the time of writing (16 April 2026), the preliminary public consultation for the drafting of some of these implementing regulations has been launched. 

Renewable Acceleration Zones

A Renewable Acceleration Zone (ZAR) is defined as a specific location or area on land designated as particularly suitable for the construction of renewable electricity generation facilities, including, where applicable, electrochemical storage facilities hybridized with these.

ZARs will not include Natura 2000 sites, ZEPA (Zonas de Especial Protección para las Aves, or Special Protection Areas), ZEC (Zonas de Especial Conservación, or Special Areas of Conservation), national parks, protected natural areas, critical areas for endangered species, major bird migration routes, or areas of high environmental sensitivity as determined by the mapping tool established in Article 21(2) of Law 7/2021.

Priority for the designation of ZARs shall be given to industrial, urbanised or artificial land, degraded areas, landfills, disused quarries and mines, and existing energy or transport corridors and infrastructure. Furthermore, transmission grid planning may take into account approved ZARs for the siting of new transmission grid corridors and new substations.

Where ZARs are located in more than one autonomous community, the Sectoral Conference on Energy shall be responsible for approving a ZAR designation plan; where they cover a smaller territorial area, the designation of these zones shall fall to the relevant autonomous community or city, subject to a report from MITECO (the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge). These plans shall be subject to a strategic environmental assessment. However, before this, the government must approve a catalogue of mitigation measures in the ZARs, which will constitute the mandatory minimum framework for the prevention and reduction of environmental impacts associated with the deployment of the relevant projects within the ZARs.

In practice, projects carried out in ZARs will generally not be subject to either a standard or simplified environmental impact assessment procedure, provided that the established preventive and mitigating measures have been adopted. The regulations also provide for the possibility of establishing simplified procedures for the issuance of administrative authorisations for projects located in ZARs.

Strengthening public participation in large-scale generation and storage facilities

In procedures for prior administrative authorisation of renewable energy and storage facilities falling within the remit of the state, a single joint public consultation process will be carried out for both substantive and environmental purposes. The application for this authorisation must be accompanied by a declaration from the developer certifying that they have informed the owners of the affected land and the relevant local authorities about the project; the administration may request documentary evidence in this regard. Without this procedure, the public consultation cannot begin.

Standard of social and territorial excellence

A standard of social and territorial excellence for energy projects and its accreditation mechanisms will be regulated.

Obtaining this standard is voluntary but may constitute a credible merit in: (i) procedures for granting access and connection; (ii) tenders for the allocation of regulated economic regimes; and (iii) for the purposes of being declared as preferred energy projects.

Declaration of urgency on grounds of public interest

Under this new Royal Decree-Law, the authorisation procedures, environmental impact assessments, administrative decisions and resolutions on administrative appeals for the following projects are declared urgent for reasons of public interest: (i) those accredited with the standard indicated in section 3 above; (ii) those located entirely in areas of low environmental sensitivity; (iii) those that have been declared "preferred energy projects"; (iv) the energy facilities of projects that have been declared strategic investment projects; (v) those that have been declared "strategic energy facilities"; and (vi) the repowering projects referred to below.

Streamlining the authorisation process for repowering

It is also stipulated that, until climate neutrality is achieved, for the repowering of production facilities, electrochemical storage facilities and hybridisations of these by an amount not exceeding 25% of the originally installed capacity: (i) where the repowering is subject to an environmental impact assessment, this shall be limited to the potential impact arising from a modification or extension of the original project; (ii) the time limits set out in the substantive regulations on administrative authorisations (except those relating to public information) shall be halved; and (iii) the reuse of studies, measurements, etc. contained in previous files shall be permitted, provided that certain conditions are met.

The above shall also apply to the repowering of transmission and distribution grids provided that certain limits are not exceeded.

Exceptional extension of the fifth administrative milestone

As was the case in previous regulations, an extension of the fifth milestone established in Article 1 of Royal Decree-Law 23/2020 is granted for those installations that obtained access and connection after 27 December 2013 and before the entry into force of the RDL.

The extension may be requested once the installation has obtained administrative authorisation for construction (AAC), and under no circumstances may the deadline for obtaining the final administrative authorisation for commissioning (AAE) be later than 31 December 2030.

The application must be submitted within three months of the entry into force of the RDL for facilities that already have the AAC, or from the date of obtaining it if this is later. It must be addressed to the competent body granting this authorisation, indicating the six-month period in which the AAE will be obtained and a commitment to expressly acknowledge that the AAE (or provisional commissioning authorisation) or registration in the Administrative Register of Electricity Production Installations (RAIPEE), either provisional or definitive, cannot be obtained before the start of the chosen six-month period.

The competent authority must issue a decision within four months; failure to do so shall be deemed a negative decision.

Likewise, holders of installation permits who have obtained an extension of the milestone under Royal Decree-Law 8/2023 and during the period of validity of Royal Decree-Law 7/2025 may request to bring forward or postpone the date originally chosen, within the permitted limits.

Finally, in cases where the transmission and distribution system operators have not obtained a definitive commissioning authorisation for the positions of the substations to which the installations are connected, the milestone shall be deemed to have been met by the developers of such generation facilities, provided they can demonstrate to the grid operator to which they are connected that they have obtained a provisional commissioning authorisation for testing, provided that this covers both the generation facility and the evacuation infrastructures up to at least the last 100 metres to the substation where its access and connection point is located.

Other measures

The environmental assessment procedures for generation, storage, transmission and distribution facilities establish certain specific requirements, such as the environmental authority’s verification of the completeness of the files.

Furthermore, owners of electricity generation facilities, storage facilities, or hybrid facilities combining both, which feed into the same transmission or distribution access and connection point using a shared evacuation infrastructure and already have prior administrative authorisation for such facilities, must submit to the authorities, within one year, the evacuation infrastructures agreement they have entered into.

The government will establish, by regulation, the annual targets for biomethane penetration for purposes other than transport, in the sale or consumption of natural gas and liquefied natural gas for sectors other than transport, and a seal of social, territorial and environmental excellence will be implemented, which may be required of biomethane plants that come into operation after the date on which the these targets come into force.

Should you wish to find out more about the changes introduced by Royal Decree-Law 7/2026 of 20 March, approving the Comprehensive Response Plan to the Crisis in the Middle East, or regarding any other matters relating to Public Law and Regulated Sectors, please do not hesitate to contact one of our experts listed below or your usual contact at Osborne Clarke.