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.
Updated: Spain’s government has approved an energy storage strategy that it says will put the country “at the forefront” of what is being done in Europe and help it move towards its 2050 climate neutrality target.
The results of Spain’s auction last week for 3GW of renewables capacity have been widely welcomed by the country’s solar sector, but calls have been made to tweak future auctions to support smaller-scale projects as well as encourage the participation of bids with energy storage.
Solar PV bidders secured two-thirds of allocated capacity in the first of Spain’s new renewable energy auctions, while energy storage was not included in any of the winning bids.
The first of Spain’s new renewable energy auctions is set to take place next week, as the country offers the possibility for bidders to include energy storage in their offers.
Two UK-based firms, energy supplier OVO Energy and integrated home battery storage provider Social Energy, have expanded into international markets in Spain and in Australia respectively.
It is likely Spain will introduce “important regulatory changes in the coming years” to enable the European country to meet a national target of deploying 2.5GW of energy storage by 2030, analysts at consultancy firm Clean Horizon have said.
In the past few months Spain has announced a 2.5GW energy storage target by 2030 and Portugal is hosting a solar tender with a significant add-on option for storage. Clean Horizon’s experts Corentin Baschet and Tanguy Poirot spoke with Andy Colthorpe on the role batteries and other storage can play in the Iberian Peninsula’s energy transition in the present and future.
Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges (MITECO) said it will be receiving comments for 15 days after the current COVID-19 crisis-related state of emergency the country has declared is over.
Plans for what is being billed as “Europe’s largest solar plant” have been put forward in Spain as the UN climate negotiations came to a close in Madrid.
