Spain expands renewables but lags in battery storage development — The Japan Times
Spain, where renewable sources provide about 60% of electricity on the grid, needs large-scale investment in battery storage and power grids. Rapid growth in solar and wind generation has already reduced electricity prices, but has also caused electricity surpluses during peak hours, The Japan Times reports.
According to preliminary data from grid operator Red Eléctrica, renewable energy production in Spain reached a record high this summer. However, due to significant volumes of solar generation, electricity prices are increasingly turning negative. As of September 4, the country had recorded 681 hours of negative prices — more than during all of 2025.
Storage shortage
According to BloombergNEF estimates, Spain's total installed battery storage capacity in 2025 was about 400 megawatts. This is less than 2% of the target of 22.5 gigawatts by 2030. Batteries can store surplus solar electricity during the day and feed it into the grid in the evening, as well as promptly compensate for declines in generation caused by changing weather conditions.
Secretary of State for Energy Joan Groizard said that the government had accelerated permitting procedures and was subsidizing the installation of energy storage systems. According to him, thousands of megawatts of such capacity are at various stages of approval.
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At the same time, Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Patricio Alvarez noted that batteries capable of storing electricity for two to four hours can already compete with gas generation on cost. However, long-duration storage technologies remain expensive.
Power grid constraints
Investment in Spain's power grid is limited to 0.3% of GDP, the lowest ratio of grid spending to the share of renewable energy among EU countries and the United Kingdom, according to BloombergNEF. There is also a shortage of available grid capacity, making it difficult for new renewable energy, storage and data center projects to connect.
The Spanish government announced plans to invest €13.6 billion in the power grid by the end of the decade. According to government calculations, this is expected to increase high-voltage grid capacity fourteenfold and enable industrial projects worth about €7 billion that are currently on hold.
Preliminary findings on the large-scale blackout on the Iberian Peninsula in April 2025 indicate that Spain's grid was not sufficiently prepared for sharp frequency fluctuations linked to solar power plants in the south of the country. The causes of the outage are still under investigation.
