Spain allocates €150m for 2.82 GWh of grid-scale, standalone batteries

Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), via its Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) agency, has published the final list of independent, standalone electrochemical and thermal energy storage projects which will receive €156 million ($163.8 million).

Some 35 battery sites with a total scale of 690.2 MW/2.82 GWh will receive €150 million under the program.

A further 10 thermal storage sites will receive €6.48 million and add 88.35 MW/591.27 MWh of capacity to Spain’s grid.

All the projects will be operational in either 2025 or 2026.

The Asturias autonomous community will host 15 of the battery sites, which have been allocated €60.8 million. The Canary Islands’ five projects will receive €14.9 million; the Basque country four sites and €9.6 million; Catalonia and Cantabria will host three battery facilities each, subsidized to the tune of €39.9 million and €11 million, respectively; and the Valencian community will feature two battery projects. The Balearic Islands, Andalusia, and Galicia will host one battery site each.

Ten of the battery sites are in zones that are backed by European Union Just Transition funding and seven are in demographic challenge zones that feature in the government’s plan to address depopulation.

Battery developers to benefit from the government funding include Benbros, which has eight projects with a total 149.19 MW of project capacity under the program; FRV, which has three projects totaling 119 MW; Iberdrola (nine projects, 55 MW); IM2 Energía (three projects, 25 MW); EDP, which has a 15 MW project; and Sungrow, which has a 5 MW site.

Four of the ten thermal storage sites to receive backing will be developed in Castilla y León, another three will be in Castilla-La Mancha, and the rest are in the Basque Country, Madrid, and Galicia.

The procurement program considered economic viability, ability to integrate renewable energy, job creation potential, demographic- and just transition-challenge benefits, impact on the industrial value chain, environmental impact, gender equality, innvovation, and the participation of small and medium-sized businesses.

The IDAE agency allocated €100 million for pumped hydro storage project support in July 2024 with all of the incentives funded by European Union Next Generation cash under the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of Renewable Energy, Renewable Hydrogen and Storage initiative (PERTE ERHA).

From pv magazine España.