Today’s session was opened by Joan Groizard, Secretary of State for Energy, who stressed that “we are a benchmark in Europe and the world in renewables and attracting new demand that seeks clean and attractive technologies. Now we are going further, it is time to decarbonise all sectors.”
The regulatory situation around storage and the presentation of the UNEF Seal of Excellence in Storage are two of the hot topics being addressed at the Summit, which will be attended by the most relevant institutions and actors in the sector.
The national photovoltaic sector has asked that the barriers that slow down a rapid, efficient and economic deployment of storage be eliminated. It highlights the need to generate a remuneration framework that gives price signals in the long term, through competitive mechanisms, as occurs with generation sources.
With the participation of nearly 50 experts and more than 500 attendees from different companies in the national photovoltaic sector and institutional representatives, it has become clear that we are at a key moment to complete the energy transition, in which the implementation of storage and green hydrogen will play a decisive role.
The Spanish Photovoltaic Union, the majority sector association for solar energy in Spain that already has more than 800 associated companies, has held today, with a resounding success in attendance, the first day of the III Storage and Green Hydrogen Summit, which was inaugurated by Joan Groizard, Secretary of State for Energy, and which will feature more than 50 national and international experts from the sector.
“We are a benchmark in Europe and the world in renewables and attracting new demand that seeks clean and attractive technologies. Now we are going further and it is time to decarbonize all sectors. “We have to ensure that each of our decisions makes sense individually and that, as a whole, they are optimal for the system,” said Groizard.
During the start of the Summit, which was attended by more than 500 people, Rafael Benjumea, president of UNEF, has called for many needs that still need to be developed, such as “making storage a priority that has the necessary economic incentives for its development, eliminating administrative and lack of knowledge barriers, and promoting the demand for hydrogen, developing a local European strategy similar to that which has been done with solar energy.”
Both the Secretary of State and the president of the association have agreed on the need to promote storage in our country. Thus, UNEF claims that “there is still much to do” and reminds that energy storage is “as important for a photovoltaic installation as the solar panel itself, since it maximizes the use of photovoltaic energy, generates an economic benefit by extending the hours of cheap energy and stabilizing the price of electricity and provides an environmental benefit, avoiding the activation of combined cycles.”
During the first day, major current issues in the sector were addressed, such as new capacity mechanisms, the regulatory situation both at national level and in the different Autonomous Communities, the safety of industrial batteries or the challenges and opportunities of projects in the territories and their environmental and social integration.
The 10 barriers that UNEF wants to break down regarding storage
UNEF has outlined the main barriers faced by storage in hybridisations, independent storage and storage in the Islands
Barriers to hybridisations
- In some regions, adding storage means restarting the process of the photovoltaic plant with which it is hybridised (with the consequent risk of not reaching the milestones).
UNEF proposes modifying the regulation or clarifying in ‘frequently asked questions’ that photovoltaics and storage can and should be processed in parallel.
- There are many facilities with almost 50 MW of installed capacity that do not add batteries because it would imply a change of substantive body and restarting the process (and not reaching the milestones).
UNEF proposes two solutions: consider the access capacity instead of the installed capacity (when storage is added, the access capacity is not modified) or consider each generation and/or storage module separately instead of the capacity of the entire facility.
- Need for a new simplified environmental assessment for the storage module.
UNEF proposes allowing the addition of an addendum to the environmental assessment of the generation project (only for electrochemical storage and only within the perimeter already assessed for the facility).
