Value-rent-finance in Spain's solar transition

In this paper, we analyse Spain's market-based transition to renewable sources of energy, focusing on solar power. In recent year's Spain's energy transition has been viewed as a successful model in which producers have moved away from a reliance on state subsidies in the form of Feed in Tariffs. Instead, solar electricity generation in Spain has been fostered through careful regulation, a dramatic fall in the cost of solar modules produced in China, and readily available, high-quality land on which the infrastructure of solar farms can be constructed. The value relations through which these shifts have taken place are complex. We therefore deploy an analytic (originally developed to make sense of the financialisation of water infrastructure) to tease out the internal relations between value, rent and finance in a moment in which fictitious capital is actively pursuing rents in the Spanish electricity sector. In the case of Spain's solar boom, those rents are found both in the form of ground rents and in the form of interest-bearing capital. Drawing on empirical data from a range of different projects, we trace out these different income streams and relate them back to a broader critique of political economy. Our analysis presents a critical analysis of the totality of the solar economy. In addition, we show the power relations structuring that economy, from producers in China to landowners in Spain. Finally, we develop an analysis attuned to the geographical transfer of value across space while recognising the differing material properties of resources and lands.