State Secretary for Energy, Spain

Biography

Joan Groizard Payeras was appointed Secretary of State for Energy in November 2024. Groizard (Palma, 1989) is an Energy and Environment Engineer from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and has dedicated his entire professional career to the promotion of renewable deployment, the development of the ecological transition and the social response to the climate emergency. Since 2019, he has carried out these tasks at the head of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), under the Secretary of State for Energy, of which he will now become President. There he has been in charge, among other functions, of the coordination and execution of the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of Renewable Energies, Renewable Hydrogen and Storage (PERTE EHRA), financed with the Next Generation Funds, which, for the moment, has mobilized more than 13,000 million euros to activate lines of aid that accelerate and expand Spain's energy and industrial capacities in terms of ecological transition. Groizard, who has a Master's Degree in Corporate Social Responsibility Management from the Open University of Catalonia, began his professional career in the United Kingdom, where he worked as an engineer and consultant in the renewable sector. In 2015, he was appointed Director General of Energy and Climate Change of the Government of the Balearic Islands, a position from which he coordinated the design, public participation processes and drafting of the Regional Climate Change and Energy Transition Law, one of the first to establish a full decarbonisation of the region by 2050 on a national and European scale. In this position, he also led the planning that has made it possible to advance the deployment of renewable energy and sustainable mobility on the islands, as well as agreeing on climate policies with municipal entities and social agents, and piloting air quality improvement programmes. In 2018 he became Director of Renewable Energies and Energy Market at IDAE, from where he coordinated the strengthening of the institution's investment activity in innovative energy solutions, the design of plans to support renewable deployment and the role of the Institute as a catalyst and agglutinator of innovative proposals. Within the framework of this activity, Groizard actively participated in the preparation of the different plans and regulatory texts that make up the Strategic Framework for Energy and Climate and, in particular, has contributed to the conceptualization of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030. In 2019 he assumed the position of general director of the IDAE, a position from which he has led the expansion of this public business entity, the main managing body of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in relation to the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), mobilising more than 13,000 million in different lines, managed directly by the Institute or agreed with the autonomous communities. Directly, the Institute has activated more than 30 lines of aid for unique projects in innovative areas such as offshore wind, deep geothermal, repowering and hybridization, and storage. As general director of IDAE, Groizard has delved into the role of the Institute as an investor in pioneering projects and its role as a think tank for energy policies, contributing to the different regulatory developments activated in recent years, including aspects such as self-consumption and energy communities. Groizard is a member of the Governing Council of the Institute for Just Transition and of the Board of Trustees of the CIUDEN Foundation. He is also vice-president of the Sustainable Energy Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).