PVTIME – A temporary moratorium on new photovoltaic developments on rural land has come into effect in Spain’s Balearic Islands, alongside official work to draw up revised strategic plans for the deployment of renewable energy and energy storage.
Introduced under Regional Act 4/2026, which was issued on 11 June 2026, the temporary licensing pause is part of the government’s urgent action to advance regional economic transition targets and streamline administrative approval procedures. Local regulators have explained that the suspension is intended to reconcile the expansion of renewable energy with the protection of farmland, natural landscapes, and local ecosystems.
The legislation has no retrospective application. Projects granted grid connection approval before the Act came into force, as well as self-consumption solar setups, upgrades to existing energy assets and hybrid energy retrofit schemes, are exempt from the rules.
The licensing pause provides a two-year window for the authorities to finalise new energy legislation to be included in the Balearic Islands Master Plan for the Energy Sector. The updated regulatory framework will establish formal criteria for the selection of sites, the capacity of projects and the integration of projects into the landscape for all future renewable energy schemes.
It will identify designated zones suitable for energy infrastructure, set rules to align project scale with land use categories and strike a balance between progress on the energy transition, safeguarding rural land and achieving sustainable economic growth across the archipelago. The regional authorities first adopted the Climate Change and Energy Transition Act in 2019, committing the territory to securing 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. Photovoltaic generation has been identified as a key technology to enable this.
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