Masdar and Endesa Start Building 3 Grid-Forming Batteries in Spain

• Masdar and Endesa began building three grid-forming battery systems with 60.16 MW / 120.34 MWh at solar plants in southwest Spain.
• The €25.2 million projects are the first storage under the partners' 2024 solar deal; €9 million comes from public grants.
• All three systems are due to start operating by the end of 2027.

Masdar and Endesa have started building three battery storage systems at existing solar plants in Spain, adding 60.16 MW / 120.34 MWh of capacity for a combined €25.2 million ($28.1 million), Masdar said in a statement on Nov. 5.

The largest system, Ardila, will add 36.10 MW / 72.20 MWh in 12 containers to a 44-MWp solar plant in Fregenal de la Sierra, Badajoz province. La Vega I and La Vega II, at two solar plants in Teba, Málaga, will each get 12.03 MW / 24.07 MWh in four containers. All three pair lithium iron phosphate cells with grid-forming inverters. These supply synthetic inertia, like a thermal or hydro unit, and react almost at once to sudden changes on the grid, the companies said.

Ardila costs €14.3 million, of which €4.6 million is a grant under Spain's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, Endesa said in its own release. The two La Vega systems cost €10.9 million, with €4.4 million from an IDAE programme co-financed by the EU's FEDER 2021-2027 funds. Ardila connects to the transmission grid at the Brovales 400-kV substation, according to the IDAE grant resolution.

These are the first battery storage projects under a partnership that Endesa closed in December 2024. Masdar then bought 49.99% of EGPE Solar, which owns about 2 GW of Endesa's operating solar in Spain, for about €850 million, Endesa said.

The batteries in numbers

• 2 hours of storage at full power in every system: 120.34 MWh divided by 60.16 MW (list.solar calculation).
• €209 of total investment per kWh of storage capacity, before grants (list.solar calculation).
• 36% of the €25.2 million comes from public grants (list.solar calculation from Endesa's figures).
• 20 battery containers across the three sites, about 6.02 MWh each, according to Endesa.
• 4.1 GW of Masdar capacity is operating in Spain and Portugal, with about 1 GW in development.
• 22.5 GW of energy storage is Spain's 2030 target in its updated national energy and climate plan.

Masdar, which began building the 200-MW Chereh floating solar plant in Malaysia in October, targets 100 GW worldwide by 2030.

Work at La Vega began in October. Ardila's construction runs into the first quarter of 2027, and all three systems are due online by the end of 2027. CIRCE and the IIT institute at Comillas Pontifical University will test the grid-forming operation on site.