Investment of €27 million “partially financed by PRR”
Portuguese energy giant GALP has announced construction of five battery projects, with a total capacity of 74 megawatts (MW), to store solar energy in Spain and Portugal.
In a statement, the company explains that these storage units, supplied by Sungrow, will be connected to two of GALP’s largest photovoltaic solar parks, in Alcoutim (Algarve) and Manzanares (Castilla la Mancha).
In Portugal, Galp is developing a set of four storage systems with a combined capacity of 60.5 MW / 120.4 MWh (two-hour batteries).
With a total investment of €27 million, partly financed by Brussels’ Plan for Recovery and Resilience through REPowerEU, these projects are an expansion of the 5 MW project, which has been in operation since early 2025 in Alcoutim.
The batteries will enable the company to store excess solar production during the day and make it available to the electricity grid during peak demand periods, especially in the early evening, explains Lusa – leaving out part of the explanation in GALP’s statement, which shows this too is a move to obviate further country-wide blackouts, as happened earlier this year.
The statement’s text reveals that the Sungrow PowerTitan 2.0 batteries to be used in the projects, “incorporate inverters with grid-forming technology, which contribute to greater stability of the electricity grid”.
Anyone who followed the early explanations of what happened on April 28 across the Iberia Peninsula, will have heard the expression “instability of the electricity grid” many times.
GALP’s executive director for Renewables, Georgios Papadimitriou, explains: “These projects reinforce our contribution to a more sustainable Iberian energy system, combining renewable generation with cutting-edge energy storage technology solutions and 24/7 dispatch operations (…) By creating the capacity to supply clean energy, even during critical periods of peak demand, we are actively promoting a more sustainable, reliable and accessible electricity system for everyone.”
source material: LUSA/ GALP
