The government of Spain, through the Institution for the diversification and energy savings (IDAE) has awarded 880MW/1,809MWh in its first tender for energy storage to be co-located with renewables.
Among the companies awarded from the Spanish strategic projects for the economic recovery and transition (PERTE in Spanish) programme are utilities Iberdrola, Naturgy, Enel Green Power but also renewables developer Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) among others.
Results were published in mid-November with in total 34 projects awarded capacity in the auction across the entire territory, including one project each in the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands, however most of the capacity was focused in the central provinces of Spain, as shown in the map below.
The launch of this first tender aimed to co-locate energy storage with other renewable sources, mainly solar PV, and aimed to fund at least 600MW of projects with a fund of €150 million (US$162 million) in capital expenditure for the projects.
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Grants will cover 40-65% of the project cost depending on the size of the company applying, while nearly €160 million ended up being allocated to the awarded projects.
All the projects but one are targeted to be completed in 2025, with the exception being one awarded in the Balearic Islands, expected to be completed by the end of April 2026. Spain targets 20GW of new energy storage by 2030.
The first tender ended up being oversubscribed with more than 1.1GW/1.1GWh capacity, between 58 projects, not selected for the funding of the tender.
The projects that were awarded in the PERTE tender were measured based on four criteria, with different points. Projects were awarded based on the total score across these four criteria which were: economic viability (35%), technical features (25%), project viability (10%) and externalities (30%).
According to a post on LinkedIn from Lars Stephan, senior manager of policy and market development at Fluence, Spain’s way of selecting winning projects was “quite different” to other support schemes seen in Europe in the past. “Taking technical criteria in sight will ensure that smartest instead of cheapest systems are going to be built; systems that will be able to provide future system needs such as inertia and other system stability services.”
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