The Minister of Ecological Transition and PSOE candidate for the European elections this Thursday greatly displeased the renewable energy sector. “Energy storage is already profitable today. There is no need for incentives from the Government for its development,” she assured early in the morning.
The statement caught by surprise a large part of executives in the sector who were at an event organized by the Association of Renewable Producers to precisely analyze the “Zero and negative prices: real impact on renewable projects”, held this Thursday in Madrid
Ribera’s statements were quickly transferred to the room where the participants in the round tables had already positioned this storage as the only alternative to avoid the long-term collapse in electricity prices that has worsened in recent years. months.
“Many marketers have already stopped offering storage, especially for homes because with the current price structure, clients who oversized their facilities to obtain income from discharges into the network are now not receiving remuneration for this excess production. electricity,” warned Pablo Corredoira, managing partner of Haz Energía.
This lack of incentive not only affects self-consumption facilities, the sector warns that in the coming years there will be a saturation of renewable production that can only be absorbed if there is that storage. What for Teresa Ribera is a reason for the profitability of these types of facilities, the sector sees it just the opposite. “Huge amounts of storage are needed so that the objectives of the National Energy and Climate Plan are met. Without them there will be saturation in the market and zero prices and discharges will multiply,” warned Javier Revuelta, senior director of the energy consulting firm Afry Management Consulting.
The experts went even beyond the “necessary monetary remuneration” as a key incentive that storage needs. “The system is going to be stressed because there is no demand, as long as there is no demand it does not make much sense to install batteries, although we do not only have to think about them when talking about storage. The regulator should opt for other systems such as biomass. Furthermore, now the treatment of someone who has batteries is that they become directly manageable by Red Electrica, and have no margin for autonomous management of the facilities. The legislative change is another form of incentive,” warned Jorge Moreno, director of market operations at Acciona Energía.
“The Government should take note of what happened in the last auction. It was deserted because the prices were not interesting. If there are no incentives for storage, the storage that the country needs may not arrive,” said Carlos Moro, director of business development in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, at Recurrent Energy.