The lithium-ion BESS will reinforce the electricity market in Spain and help to integrate more intermittent renewable energy, and Naturgy is investing €80 million (US$94 million) in them.
The projects are recipients of funding under Spain’s energy storage capex support scheme funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience framework, which is funding up to 3.5GWh of projects.
Naturgy’s peer Galp similarly announced the start of construction on BESS projects in Spain (and Portugal) earlier this year, as did Iberdrola in August.
Spain aims to be 81% powered by renewables by 2030, according to the country’s National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP), and energy storage will be key to helping to maintain system reliability and dampen price volatility. The government forecasts that 22.5GW of BESS will be needed by that date.
Spain and Portugal suffered a near country-wide blackout in April this year, which commentators have suggested could have been better mitigated with more grid-supporting and grid-forming technologies, including energy storage.
Naturgy is based in Spain but its first major large-scale activity was in Australia, bringing online the 128MW Cunderdin hybrid solar PV and 55MW/220MWh BESS in Western Australia in early 2025.