The Spanish ministry for the ecological transition on Wednesday launched two state aid programmes to award a total of EUR 390 million (USD 416m) in grants to energy storage projects and marine energy platforms and solutions.
Both programmes are part of Spain’s EU-backed Covid recovery financing tool aimed at supporting renewables, energy storage and hydrogen -- the so-called PERTE ERHA tool for its acronym in Spanish.
The energy storage programme has a budget of EUR 150 million, which will be awarded in a competitive tender. Interested parties can submit their proposals from January 18 until March 20, 2023.
To be eligible, projects have to be designed to operate as hybrids with renewable power generation, new or existing. All storage technologies, except hydrogen storage, will be accepted.
With a budget of EUR 240 million, the programme for marine renewables, or Renmarinas Demos, is open to research organisations and corporate entities seeking to design innovative marine energy prototypes, solutions or devices and expand or build new testing infrastructure for these types of technologies.
The funds will be awarded on a competitive basis under four sub-programmes -- two dedicated to testing platforms and infrastructure, one dedicated to innovative technological solutions in the field of offshore wind energy, whether floating or fixed, wave and tidal energy, floating solar PV and hybrids of all of these, and one sub-programme dedicated to projects for testing platforms and marine technology demonstrators developed at the same site.
All projects competing for the Renmarinas Demos funds have to be new, that is, their implementation cannot begin before applying for the state aid. Also, projects have to finalised before January 15, 2026.
Applications will be accepted between January 31 and March 24, 2023, the ministry said.
Both programmes will be managed by Spanish government agency in charge of promoting energy diversification and saving IDAE.
Spain will need some 20 GW of energy storage capacity in 2030 to meet its targets. In the road map for marine renewables, the government said it would target 1 GW to 3 GW of floating wind and 40 MW to 60 MW of marine energy by 2030.
(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.067)
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Concept for the OCEANH2 project. Image by Acciona (www.acciona.com)
