Owner-operator BW ESS and developer Ibersun have entered into a partnership to develop and deploy 2.2GW of BESS projects in Spain.
The joint venture (JV) is initially targeting eight battery energy storage system (BESS) greenfield projects each with a 4-hour duration, which will be equally owned by the two companies. They are aiming to bring the projects to ready-to-build (RTB) status within the next two years.
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Spain is targeting 22.5GW of new energy storage by 2030 under its National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), though the market has been relatively slow to take off partially due to a lack of regulations around providing grid support services.
It is nonetheless seen as a market with strong fundamentals, and BW ESS and Ibersun’s announcement follows a period of increased activity, including an identically-sized JV announcement from Atlantico and Renewco and independent power producer (IPP) Enlight announcing a solar-plus-storage project with 220MWh of BESS.
A €700 million (US$811 million) capex support scheme for storage using EU Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF) funding is expected to be the kickstarter, with 2.5-3.5GW of projects to be supported, launched earlier this month.
But, a regulation for grid services is key, explained Javier Izcue, VP Europe for inverter and BESS firm Sungrow in an interview last month (Premium). The blackout in Spain and Portugal in April has increased the conversation around the need for more grid-forming and grid-supporting resources.
BW ESS is a global BESS owner-operator, with operational portfolios in the UK and Sweden via a partnership with local developers Penso Power and Ingrid Capacity, and development pipelines in Australia, Germany (announced last month), Italy and now Spain.
Just a few days prior to the Spain announcement, BW ESS’ owner shipping and energy trading conglomerate BW Group announced the launch of BW Velora, an entity focusing on developing and commercialising data centre and digital infrastructure sites in the Nordics and Canada.
BW Velora will leverage the digital infrastructure expertise of another subsidiary BW Digital, and BW ESS’ extensive experience developing energy infrastructure in Europe. It said this would help “position itself at the intersection of digital infrastructure development, access to renewable energy and engagement with local communities,” though didn’t give specific details on how, if at all, energy storage would factor in.
