en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Spanish government has approved Royal Decree 997/2025, which will promote the hybrid deployment of photovoltaic power plants and energy storage facilities, while simplifying administrative procedures to accelerate the integration of storage facilities into the power system.
At the fourth edition of the Storage and Hydrogen Summit held in March this year, the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) stated that energy storage has become a structural component of the power system. Secretary of State for Energy Joan Groizard indicated at the opening of the summit that advancing renewable energy and storage is essential for the current and future energy transition. While awaiting the government's release of the new Royal Decree on Self-Consumption, Royal Decree 997/2025, passed on November 5 last year, aims to strengthen the power system. The Official State Gazette (BOE) notes that standalone or hybrid electrochemical storage technologies are key tools for promoting the integration of non-dispatchable renewable energy, and accelerating the processing of storage facilities is crucial to ensuring the security and stability of the power system, reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the BOE, the decree introduces two specific measures to promote storage development. The first measure stipulates that for hybrid projects where new storage modules are located on sites where existing facilities have already obtained an environmental impact statement, the need for an environmental assessment may be waived. This is because hybrid storage on already assessed sites is considered a result of technological development, and technically, there is no need to reprocess the corresponding procedures. The second measure simplifies the processing of hybrid electrochemical storage facilities under the jurisdiction of the General State Administration. For such hybrid storage projects, if no environmental impact assessment is required, they may be declared urgent projects for reasons of public interest.
UNEF has positively evaluated the approval of this Royal Decree, believing that promoting hybridization and simplifying administrative procedures could enable significant growth in storage technology by 2026. In terms of storage data, according to UNEF's annual report, 327 MWh of behind-the-meter storage was added in 2024, reaching a cumulative total of 2,205 MWh since 2022. This figure represents a 34% decrease from 2023, when 495 MWh were installed. In 2024, 26% of newly installed grid-connected residential self-consumption facilities were equipped with batteries, with a capacity of 110 MWh. Large-scale storage deployment has progressed slowly, hindered by administrative barriers and a lack of a clear regulatory framework. Although the number of operational storage facilities by the end of 2024 was low (11 MW in the distribution network), according to access and grid connection application data published by Red Eléctrica de España (REE), over 9.5 GW of access permit applications have been submitted. As of the time of reporting, Spain's installed battery capacity was 193 MW, with over 25 GW of batteries already permitted, and including applications under processing, the total scale exceeds 41 GW.
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