en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) of Spain, through its subordinate Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), has allocated €165 million for the second call of the BORALMAC program, aimed at promoting innovative projects in the field of reversible pumped storage. Due to funding demand exceeding expectations, the government has added €75 million to the initially set budget of €90 million. This funding comes from the NextGenerationEU funds under the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR).
The final resolution covers seven projects located in Andalusia, Asturias (two projects), Aragon, Extremadura, Catalonia, and Galicia. These projects are expected to add a total of 2,071 MW of installed capacity and provide a combined storage capacity of 21,091 MWh.
Among the seven selected projects, six are new reversible hydropower plants, while the seventh, located in Extremadura, plans to utilize the infrastructure of an existing hydropower plant to enhance storage capacity by adding pumping equipment. This call is a continuation of the first call of the BORALMAC program, which allocated €100 million (using the entire available budget) to support four projects, adding over 2 GW of hydropower storage capacity in total.
When evaluating projects, IDAE assessed technical and geographical factors related to the energy transition, in addition to economic viability. These criteria include: the project's ability to integrate non-dispatchable renewable energy and its contribution to the resilience of the power system, the project's administrative maturity, whether the project is located in municipalities facing demographic challenges or undergoing a just transition process, the project's impact on national and European value chains, its local political and social acceptance, gender equality standards, and the degree of technological innovation of the project.
IDAE stated that after the applicants submit guarantees, all or part of the approved funding can be advanced to provide financial support for the project development phase.
