The secretary of state for energy is a senior minister of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition responsible for the energy and mining policies.
The secretary of state designs the Spanish mining and energy policies to ensure energy supply and comply with environmental goals such us decarbonization, air quality and economic growth in the area. In addition, the secretary of state is responsible for overseeing and regulating energy markets, as well as protecting consumers and reducing energy poverty.
The secretary of state is appointed by the monarch on the advice the minister for the ecological transition. Since 29 November 2024, the secretary of state is Joan Groizard Payeras.
The energy policy in Spain has been traditionally bound to the industrial policy and started taking more importance in 1979, when the Ministry of Industry was modified and named Ministry of Industry and Energy.
However, it wasn't until 1996 that the energy was granted with its own higher body, the Secretariat of State for Energy and Minieral Resources, assuming the competences of the General Secretariat for Energy and Mineral Resources. The life of this body was very short, being integrated in the Secretariat of State for Industry between 1998 and 2000 and in the Secretariat of State for Economy between 2000 and 2002, both bodies within the Ministry of Economy. In 2002, the competences over economy and over Energy and SMEs split in two Secretariats of State recovering its autonomy for 2 years until the change of government of 2004, when the new prime minister relegated the body to a General Secretariat level within the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. In 2009 was re-created.
The zenith of its autonomy reached it in 2016 when the prime minister split the Ministry of Industry originating a new Ministry of Energy that assumed also the competences over Tourism and Telecommunications.
In 2018, the new government modification integrated the Secretariat of State in the Ministry of Environment in order to establish a transversal environmental policy. This new ministry integrated all the environmental-related competences (except for industrial ones) and received the name of Ministry for the Ecological Transition.
In 2024, a new directorate-general for energy planning and coordination was established. This new body also manage nuclear energy policy.
, this is the organization of the Secretariat of State: