Minister: Behind-the-meter storage eligible for Spanish grid capacity mechanism

The third edition of the Green Hydrogen and Storage Summit, organized by trade body UNEF, attracted more than 500 attendees to Madrid on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Opening the meeting, Spanish Secretary of State for Energy Joan Groizard said, “We are rowing at a faster pace than we could have indicated a few years ago, although not as fast as the sector demands.”

He said the government’s priorities include faster processing of clean energy project applications; opening up the energy system to all types of clean power generation and storage, by updating regulation; drafting a capacity mechanism to ensure future grid supply; encouraging the hybridization of different types of clean energy technology; and enabling the aggregation of small renewable energy and storage systems.

Groizard said a call for “hydrogen valleys,” dedicated to generating the energy carrier, is being finalized and added, “We must think about decarbonizing 100% of … sectors. There is beginning to be a playing field for renewable hydrogen, storage is beginning to play a role.”

The secretary of state warned, however, electrification must not burden bill payers and said all the proposals received by his ministry would have an impact on electricity bills. That “represents a very delicate balance,” he said, adding, “And that is the puzzle that we are working on.”

The energy secretary said 40,000 small, customer-side, “behind the meter” (BTM) clean energy systems have been installed in Spain and “there are many large-scale battery projects in the pipeline.”

He invited clean energy industry representatives to “identify the regulatory barriers,” and called for cross-party political support to amend legislation to transform the energy sector and take advantage of Spain’s opportunity to be a leader in decarbonization.

Issues addressed at the summit included planned new capacity mechanisms, regulation at national level and in Spain’s autonomous communities, security of technology, the challenges and opportunities presented by clean energy development, and the environmental and social impact of renewables sites.

There were few concrete announcements from government at the event, however, apart from a statement by Fátima García Señán, Spain’s deputy director general of storage and flexibility, that BTM systems with a capacity of up to 1 MW, installed for self-consumption of electricity, would be able to participate in the planned grid capacity mechanism.

Event organizer UNEF identified 10 barriers to solar in Spain which it says must be addressed.

Hybrid hurdles

In some Spanish regions, adding energy storage to existing solar farms can force a reboot of the permitting process for the entire site, including solar. UNEF wants regulation to recognize solar and energy storage facilities can, and should, be processed in parallel.

Numerous solar sites with generation capacities near the 50 MW threshold that necessitates a different permitting process are disincentivized from adding energy storage as that would take it into the more complex permitting regime, restarting the whole procedure. UNEF suggests either assessing hybrid sites on their grid access capacity – which would not change when energy storage is added – or permitting each generation and storage section of sites individually rather than addressing total site capacity.

Similarly, the total installed capacity of solar sites where storage is added is currently assessed by adding the size of both systems, even when storage is direct-current (DC)-coupled and uses the same inverters as the solar panels. UNEF argues the installed power of hybrid sites should be assessed based on inverter power, thus removing any DC-coupled energy storage from the total figure.

The trade body wants energy storage that is added to existing solar projects to undergo environmental assessment as an addendum to the original project, rather than requiring a fresh environmental permit, provided energy storage systems are battery based and housed within the boundaries of the existing solar site.

Existing regulation states that, in the case of multiple clean energy generation facilities that share a grid connection, only one project can add an energy storage system capable of charging from the grid. UNEF wants that altered so that all such shared-connection facilities can charge energy storage from the grid.

Standalone storage barriers

It is not clear whether standalone energy storage sites are eligible for faster permitting and administration processes by virtue of securing a declaration of public utility (DUP) and UNEF believes such sites should be eligible and wants that codified.

The trade body wants to determine what sort of land use is suitable for the development of energy storage and wants a definition included in regional urban planning regulation.

Island energy storage

The price paid for stored energy on Spain’s islands is based on the average price set by national electricity market operator OMIE, modified hourly according to demand. UNEF wants that changed to a price signal that better reflects the crucial role energy storage can play on island grids.

BTM energy storage

The solar membership body wants the non-fixed part of electricity bills to be expanded to reflect the fact home and small commercial BTM batteries increase energy self consumption, thereby reducing grid congestion.

UNEF is also calling for aggregator regulation to enable BTM batteries to band together and offer paid grid balancing and adjustment services.

From pv magazine España.