Iberdrola and Naturgy Apply for Pumped-Storage Hydro Plant in Spain

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Iberdrola and Naturgy plan to develop a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant in Galicia, Spain. A Senra Infraestructuras, a company jointly established by the two firms, has submitted a concession application to the Miño-Sil Hydrographic Confederation (Confederación Hidrográfica del Miño-Sil, CHMS) to abstract water from the Sil and Edrada rivers in the municipality of Parada de Sil, Ourense province, with a maximum abstraction flow rate of 75,000 liters per second, equivalent to 75 cubic meters per second.

The application is still in the early stages of the administrative process, and neither company has made an investment decision yet. Project sources told El Periódico de la Energía that whether the project ultimately goes ahead will depend on the water concession providing a sufficiently broad scope of use, as well as on the existence of a capacity payment mechanism that would make the investment economically viable.

The concession application notice was published in Spain's Official State Gazette (BOE) on Friday. Based on this, the CHMS has opened a public information and project competition procedure for file number H/32/18942/CO/26, with A Senra Infraestructuras listed as the applicant. This procedure does not constitute approval of the plant, nor does it grant a final water-use concession. Within one month of the notice's publication, A Senra and any other interested third parties may submit competing projects to the CHMS, with documents signed by qualified technicians and accompanied by the materials required under the Public Water Domain Regulations. On the seventh working day after the deadline, at 12:00 noon, the technical document opening ceremony will be held at the CHMS water office in Ourense.

The project site is located in an area that already hosts significant hydroelectric infrastructure owned by both companies. Naturgy operates the Regueiro hydroelectric plant in Parada de Sil, connected to the Mao River, with a net output of 28.64 MW and commissioned in 1949; Iberdrola operates the Santo Estevo hydroelectric complex along the Sil River, with Santo Estevo I having an installed capacity of 263 MW and Santo Estevo II, commissioned in 2013, adding 188 MW to the complex, bringing the combined installed capacity to 451 MW.

The notice also stipulates that applications exceeding twice the project's maximum abstraction flow rate will no longer be accepted, unless a request is made in accordance with regulatory conditions and the corresponding deposit is submitted. The BOE notice does not disclose the plant's power output, storage capacity, expected investment, implementation schedule, or the characteristics of the required hydraulic infrastructure, and the two companies interviewed did not provide this information either; these parameters will be detailed in subsequent technical documents.

The value of pumped-storage hydro to Spain's electricity system is rising, as it can supply power to the grid during peak demand periods or when renewable generation is low, while providing flexibility and rapid response. In this context, a future capacity market is particularly important for projects such as A Senra, as the level of capacity remuneration may determine whether large-scale pumped-storage plants can achieve the necessary profitability to support high capital-density investments. Iberdrola and Naturgy have only taken the first step in the administrative process for now; securing the water concession is the primary prerequisite for moving forward. Once the concession is obtained, the two companies will still need to assess whether economic and regulatory conditions would allow the project to translate into actual investment.