STE can replace coal, nuclear and early gas as demonstrated in an hourly simulation over 4 years in the Spanish electricity mix

European Union has recently set a 32% Renewable Energy target of final energy consumption. Consequently, Spain, as European Member State, is currently facing the initial steps of the so called "Energy Transition" that will hopefully end up with the so called "Climate Change Law". By 2030, the Spanish electricity mix will be very different compared with the current one, due to the fact that all plants that will be decommissioned in the coming years will not be replaced by conventional technologies but totally by renewables. This study has demonstrated that STE/CSP will be essential to achieve a 2030 EU compliant electricity mix without Coal, Nuclear and with much less gas consumption and backup power than currently assumed while ensuring quality of supply and grid stability without pool price increase. The key will be a balanced share between PV and STE in the new solar capacity to be added and the dispatching of STE when PV starts to ramp down. This study has considered hourly data over 4 years of the Spanish electricity demand, broken down by all electricity generation sources. Then, considering a yearly increase of the demand of 1.2%1 and a smart combination of Renewables, we claim that STE would be the essential technology choice for meeting this target while reducing greenhouse gases and allowing further non-dispatchable, non-synchronous, Renewable Energy Sources (RES) penetration. At the same time, long term auctions-based remuneration model would keep generation costs below 50€/MWh. This demonstration has taken into account Spanish real hourly natural resources and real hourly demand. The study basically answers how EU RES targets can be achieved, or exceeded, if 2030 Spanish natural resources (sun, wind and water) are the same than either 2014, 2015, 2016 or 2017 real ones.