The government plans give a second use to the reservoirs so that they can also function as energy stores. In a future electricity system dominated by renewables, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition wants the reservoirs to also be used as a kind of giant renewable batteries. And to pave that path, the department headed by the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Riberaplans to promote these ‘batteries’ from the public sphere through the study of the suitability of the state-owned reservoirs to serve as “reversible hydroelectric plants”according to the draft of the update of the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) sent this week by the Government to the European Comission.
The National Energy and Climate Plan sent to Brussels proposes boosting pumped hydroelectric plants
This roadmap foresees reaching 2030 with 81% renewable electricity generation, without coal and with half the nuclear current, but with 22 gigawatts (GW) of storage that is to be achieved, among other formulas, through hydroelectric power plants. Currently, there are about 20 GW of installed power in centrals conventional hydroelectric and only 3.3 GW of pumping. The largest of all corresponds to the complex of Iberdrola Cortes-La Muelalocated in the municipality of Cortes de Pallás in Valencia, which has a turbine capacity of 1.7 GW and 1.2 GW of pumping.
In a conventional hydroelectric plant, the water accumulates in the reservoir and after the production of energy it follows the riverbed or goes to the sea. Pumping stations, however, include two reservoirs arranged at different heights, which allows water to be stored when there is less demand and used to produce energy when required, in a kind of closed circuit that reuses the resource. The difficulties to store energy in the absence of sun, water or air play against the development of renewable energy; However, reversible hydroelectric plants offer the option of acting as a kind of giant renewable batteries.
Spain can become “the great battery in Europe with this technology”, according to the energy sector
“He storage of energy through reversible hydroelectric plants is key to the exploitation of an electrical system based on renewable production, being even more relevant in the face of higher penetration scenarios of renewable energy, such as those shown in this plan. The development of this type of facilities will allow to gradually reduce the need for power plants based on fossil fuelsthus contributing to advance in autonomy and energy independence of the Spanish electrical system & rdquor ;, is explained in the National Plan.
The purpose of Ribera is to promote the change of use through this analysis of state-owned reservoirs for use as lower water tank for new reversible installations. In Spain there are about 1,300 hydroelectric plants, although some 1,000 are mini-plants of less than 10 MW. Not all of them, but most of them are publicly owned with a system of concessions granted in the first half of the 20th century for a period of about 75 years (and many of them have been extended).
The first to expire will do so in the next ten years with a total cumulative power of about 720 megawatts (MW) which is 90% in the hands of Iberdrola, Naturgy and Endesa. However, once the concession expires, the process of economic and environmental viability begins, according to industry sources. And to this is added the interest of companies that could file an appeal to avoid having to get rid of the facilities.
“New hydroelectric pumping measures are included to evaluate, promote and promote this technology“, explained the general deputy director of energy prospective, strategy and regulations of the Ministry for Ecological Transition, miriam goodduring the second day of the Annual Wind Congress organized by the AEE wind power employer. Thus, in addition to the analysis of public reservoirs, the Executive also intends to encourage private initiative through the simplification of processing for eliminate “regulatory and administrative barriers & rdquor; to the development of this technology, as established in the draft of the PNIEC.
“The Great Battery of Europe”
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Building a new pumping station takes time. It takes about 10 years from the beginning of the administrative procedure until it is launched, according to sources in the sector. And the current procedure does not favor it by establishing that the entire process should last about 7 years, which is why many promoters rule out starting its implementation due to the impossibility of meeting those deadlines and ask to extend them, according to these same sources.
Besides, the Spanish Association of Energy Storage (Asealen) complained in February of a year ago that these types of facilities are currently blocked for his lack of access to the electricity grid being considered only as generators and not counting that the storage technologies increase the utilization of the existing network. In this case, the new PNIEC contemplates the adaptation of the electrical network through the Red Eléctrica planning with the “forecast of new evacuation nodes and the reinforcement of the existing ones& rdquor ;. “Spain, for many reasons, including its special orography and the dynamism of its companies, can become a the great battery of europe with this technology & rdquor ;, added this association in a statement.
The challenge of batteries and capacity markets
Beyond the hydraulic pumping stations, the Government also points to batteries –and combined cycles– as pieces of the puzzle to achieve full renewable integration. Batteries are still in a very early stage with only one installation operating in the Spanish market: a 5 megawatt-hour (MWh) wind storage battery in Abadiño (Basque Country) owned by the Iberdrola group. “Storage is the future. The reality today is that there is tremendous interest because we receive many inquiries, but today there is only one plant operating. That does operate like any other supply unit, it is the same as talking about batteries, pumping or combined cycle”, explained the director of market operations (OMIE), Yolanda Cuellar, during the second day of the Annual Wind Congress organized by the AEE employers’ association. “There is a lot of appetite”, agreed the coordinator of studies of the electrical system of Red Eléctrica (REE), Agustín Díaz García, who quantified the requests for access to the ‘stand-alone’ storage network at 11 GW, that is, not integrated to a power generation plant, but at the disposal of the network. Of these 11 GW, only 2 GW have already obtained permission. But while there is no further encouragement for this type of system, the storage par excellence in the Spanish electricity system is that of combined cycles – power stations that burn gas to produce electricity – since they can manage their production. After years of uselessness, with the energy crisis derived from the war in Ukraine, this technology returned to the front line of fire and through the front door -in 2022 they led electricity production for the first time in a decade-, but the main The problem they face is their economic viability. In this sense, the Government and companies advocate the development of capacity markets (which reward the supply capacity of technologies, instead of production, and would also be suitable for batteries). This option already exists in the current European regulation, but as a tool of last resort. The reform of the electricity market that is being debated in Brussels opens the door to some changes to facilitate this market, but what the Spanish Government is proposing is to modify the internal market directive to standardize and generalize these services.