Grenergy Renovables SA has revealed plans to invest EUR 2.6 billion by 2026 and to begin building a gigawatt battery energy storage system (BESS), which will be in Chile. The vertically integrated renewables company based in Spain held its first Capital Markets Day recently.
According to a recent statement, it would allocate 800 million euros to battery storage. Additionally, 1.5 billion euros would be dedicated to the development of solar photovoltaic projects.
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The first project with battery aspirations is the Oasis de Atacama project in Chile. It has 1 GW of solar output and a 4.1-gigawatt battery energy storage system. Grenergy, which CEO David Ruiz de Andres describes as having the backing of five international banks mandated to finance it, plans to invest USD 1.4 billion in Oasis de Atacama. He described it as the world’s largest storage project.
Ruiz de Andres claims that Chile is leading in the development of energy storage. This is attributed to the unique solar radiation hours of the Atacama Desert and the particular composition of the energy mix in this large area. It is said that 50% of the energy in the area comes from solar sources.
How the gigawatt battery energy storage system will be built
The project will be built in five phases. Grenergy also expects the facilities to be operational in phases over the course of the coming 36 months.
A 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) between the Chilean renewable energy trader Emoac and the Oasis de Atacama solar-plus-storage plant offers the plant’s financing. Grenergy only revealed that Emoac will off-take 541 GWh of energy annually during peak hours at night. The information was provided when it announced its PPA a few days ago. No further details were provided.
Grenergy also plans to boost its energy storage capacity to 4.1 GWh and its gross installed solar capacity to 5 GW.
According to the third-quarter earnings report, Grenergy currently has an operating capacity of 765 MW.
