The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITECO) has awarded €360 million (US$415 million) to 1.14GW of solar PV co-located with battery energy storage system (BESS) projects.

IPP Prosalia has commissioned a 15MW/60MWh battery storage system at a solar PV plant in Portugal, while power group EDP has added one to a hybrid wind and solar project in Spain.

In this news roundup, Grenergy, MaxSolar and Saft, and Amarenco have made significant advancements on BESS projects in Spain, Germany, and France.

Spain has awarded €165 million to seven pumped hydro storage projects totalling around 2.1GW/21GWh, while Portugal has set a target of 1.4GW of new pumped hydro capacity by 2040.

Return and Engie have agreed a long-term BESS toll in Spain while EnBW and Zelestra have finalised one in Italy, totalling 55MW and 300MW of capacity respectively.

Eni Storage Systems has broken ground on a gigafactory in Italy set to build LFP cells for energy storage applications, while Chinese firm Hithium has won an €80 million grant from the Spanish government for a battery and BESS plant there.

Power firm Engie has entered into a long-term flexibility purchase agreement with developer Ignis for 625MWh of BESS capacity in Spain.

A lot of work and thought still needs to go into maximising the potential for co-location of solar and BESS technology, panellists at the Clean Power 2030 Summit said yesterday (30 June).

IPP Greenvolt has put a 99.8MW/288.6MWh BESS into commercial operation in Hungary, the largest in the country, while pipelines and projects have been progressed in Italy, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

There is a big gap in the industry’s understanding of the Spanish energy storage market, but that gap also creates opportunities for smart operators, writes Ignacio López Martín, chair of developer Capflex Energía.