Furthermore, he notes that many developers have bet on Asturias because it was an ideal area for the allocation of access and connection points, but one year ago, when the grant applications were submitted, there was not the level of social rejection that currently exists.

“The new local legislation now states that storage must be located more than 500 meters from any habitable building, and that will be complicated. Ideally, land should be available close to the connection point, but if to comply with the new regulations, you have to move the battery storage system installation four kilometers from the substation, the batteries won’t have as much impact as the lines to connect with the substation,” adds Pinilla.

Processing Timelines

Another point of uncertainty about the call is the compliance with processing timelines, as it requires projects to have a positive environmental impact statement (DIA) between the end of this year and the beginning of 2025. The sector indicates that these are tight timelines to meet, given the six-month delay in the PERTE resolution.

In this context, Andrés Pinilla Antón comments: “The milestones set that by April 30, 2026, the 3 GWh must be operational, having passed the start-up tests and being in commercial operation. Meeting the various committed dates will be practically unfeasible for most projects.” He continues: “The fear I have, for the good of Spain, is that these 150 million euros may not be granted to developers because many of these projects cannot be completed on time due to the restrictive deadlines and the lack of agility in obtaining all the necessary authorizations.”

For his part, Millet Biosca agrees that there will be delays in the administrative part because there have been delays during 2023 and 2024 in processing projects that have received provisional admission and several months later definitive admission.

“And we also know that some projects are processing sequentially, rather than in parallel, the environmental assessments and administrative authorizations, as was previously done. Personally, I foresee that no project will meet the milestones of the call, or only a very small percentage of them,” he adds.

He also expresses concern about Europe’s demands regarding the execution deadlines for the grants. “From the consultants’ and developers’ side, we are concerned about the execution of the grants, whether they might impose penalties on companies or take away their grants. It’s not foreseen at the moment, but it is a concern,” emphasizes Lluis.

Power and Price Analysis

While the sector celebrated the resolution of the call, they point out that such measures are not enough to leverage storage in view of meeting the PNIEC target.

“700 MW of power, nearly 3 GWh of storage capacity, have been awarded. It’s a large number compared to the current situation, where only 11 MW are installed, but it is small compared to the PNIEC objectives. With this call and the hybridization call, we would reach around 1.8 GW, but we still need between 8 and 10 more GW. Considering that most projects take 4 or 5 years to process, it’s clear that something needs to be done to generate more projects as soon as possible,” explains Millet Biosca.

Moreover, he emphasizes the need to promote other mechanisms such as capacity and long-term contracts for difference to drive sector growth.

“The 700 MW awarded represent only 7% of what we need to do by 2030. These incentives are good, of course, but if they want to be ambitious and reach the 22.5 GW target of the PNIEC, a lot of work needs to be done, beyond just grants or possible support mechanisms, in removing the barriers that are limiting the development of battery storage systems,” asserts Pinilla.

He stresses the need to expedite the permitting process to advance towards the 3 or 4 GW that should be installed per year to meet the 22.5 GW target by 2030. “This call is for 700 megawatts, 0.7 gigawatts, it’s a good step forward, but it’s not enough to accelerate the sector. The government needs to figure out how to make the process faster,” he points out.

Regarding prices, consultant Millet Biosca analyzes that since one of the highest-scoring criteria was economic, there has been a trend to offer very competitive prices, and he highlights that there is economic variability and a substantial difference between the granted and non-granted projects. “We are at 330 EUR/kWh for the non-selected ones, and between 266 or 267 EUR/kWh for the awarded ones,” he details.

“This call reflects the price drop we’ve seen in the market, and there are prices that are tighter than the market. Since more points were awarded for pricing, developers have minimized their margins, even to zero, to ensure they were granted the subsidies,” he points out, though he notes that the reference prices are not so far from the market.