Spanish utility Iberdrola has inaugurated its ‘Tâmega Gigabattery’ in northern Portugal, a renewable energy complex including pumped hydro with an energy storage capacity of 40GWh.

Endesa Generación Portugal, part of Enel, has been award the connection rights to develop a renewable energy project combining solar, wind, green hydrogen and a 168.6MW battery energy storage system (BESS) to replace the country’s last coal station.

Iberdrola expects its 880MW pumped hydro plant at the Tâmega energy storage complex in northern Portugal to become fully operational in the middle of this year. 

The Portuguese island of Madeira will be able to radically reduce its fossil fuel consumption while keeping electricity supply stable and reliable, thanks to battery energy storage system (BESS) technology. 

A cross-border platform is being created in Europe for the provision of secondary reserve to maintain the grid’s operating frequency, which will be open to energy storage in the coming years. Tanguy Poirot, analyst, and Corentin Baschet, head of market analysis at energy storage specialist consultancy Clean Horizon take a deep dive.

There exists a strong potential for energy storage to provide ancillary services in the Iberian Peninsula’s booming renewables market, but regulatory stability should be provided to encourage the sector’s growth, a panel has suggested.

Support frameworks which address both green hydrogen supply and demand, as well as cross-border initiatives, will be pivotal to delivering affordable green hydrogen, a panel has concluded.

Portuguese utility EDP will double down on efforts to grow its energy storage and green hydrogen capabilities through two separate business units focused on the technologies.

The auction was the first of its kind in Portugal that invited companies to lodge bids with a storage component included, with eight of the 12 batches awarded to solar-plus-storage projects.

Portugal’s second solar auction has closed with record-breaking low prices of €11.14/MWh (US$13.12), or US$0.0131/kWh, the country’s government announced yesterday.