Developer Renewco and IPP Atlantica partner on 2.2GW BESS pipeline in Spain

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The projects have not yet received grid connections, but Renewco pointed to upcoming grid capacity auctions planned by the Spanish government.

“The government has recently hinted that BESS projects would have a fast track or special grid connection route due to the urgent need for building BESS capacity in the country,” Renewco said.

Energy-Storage.news has reported on co-located BESS projects from Atlantica in the US previously (here and here).

Spain: exciting but yet to take off

Spain is generally described as an exciting energy storage market but one that has yet to take off, due to a mix of lacking regulatory certainty, a less developed business case, and renewables curtailment only recently hitting the solar market (in 2022). Most recently, independent power producer (IPP) Econergy told us there would be a “a 100mph race to secure grid connections and put down bonds” once it opens up.

Alongside the grid capacity auction, Spain also awarded financial support to 1.9GWh of energy storage projects via the PERTE programme, with utility Iberdrola among those building projects with its help.

Renewco and Atlantica’s partnership is unlikely to be the first commitment by an IPP to finance and operate a large BESS pipeline in Spain, but the announcement could point to a progression in the market, particularly taking Italy as an example.

There, regulator ARERA’s approval in June 2023 of new criteria and conditions for large-scale storage on the grid, which allowed TSO Terna to progress with plans for its MACSE storage capacity auctions, was followed by a dozen gigawatt-scale BESS project development partnerships, particularly in Q3 and Q4 2023.

Renewco and Atlantica’s announcement could be the first of many this year, with the convergence of the renewables buildout and regulatory support like PERTE and the grid auction providing the catalyst.

South Australian electricity distributor SA Power Networks is set to develop a portfolio of community batteries to help support distributed energy resources and electric vehicle (EV) charging capabilities.

Ørsted has broken ground on a BESS development co-located with onshore substation infrastructure for Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm in the UK.

The battery storage markets of Italy, Great Britain and Germany are the top three most attractive for investors in Europe, according to analysis firm Aurora Energy Research.

Sweden-headquartered BESS developer-operator Ingrid Capacity will build a 70MW/140MWh project in Finland, which it claimed will be the largest in the country.

ESN Premium speaks with Anna Darmani, energy storage analyst at Wood Mackenzie, about Europe’s sector evolution.