Endesa proposes to decarbonise Spain’s islands by 2040

The dominant power utility on Spain's islands, Endesa, has proposed a roadmap for the decarbonisation of the territories by 2040, with up to 16GW of renewable capacity, 39GWh of storage and back-up capacity, reinforced interconnection and demand management.

The utility teamed up with consultancy Deloitte to present the proposal, which includes the decarbonisation of Spain's enclaves in north Africa and proposes accelerating the rollout of renewables capacity — largely solar photovoltaic (PV) — to 2030.

It has found initial support from Spain's centre-left government, with deputy prime minister Teresa Ribera involved in the presentation of the proposal.

Spain's Balearic Islands would need to install 1.7-1.8GW of additional renewables capacity to the current 100MW by 2030 and a further 2.8-3.2GW in the following decade to help meet an expected 3pc/yr increase in electricity demand to about 12TWh in 2040. Total renewable capacity would reach 4.5-5.0GW by the end of the plan.

By 2030, the new renewables capacity would be about 90pc solar PV and cover a targeted 70pc of power demand with the help of demand management and an initial 2GWh of batteries.

While the roadmap puts off most of the proposed installation of 13-15GWh of batteries in the Balearic Islands until expected technological maturity after 2030, 2GWh of permanently charged batteries integrated with existing thermal plants would be needed this decade to provide the back-up that allows Endesa to idle most of its thermal plants and cold-start them as required.

Batteries first would be installed at a 215MW unit of Endesa's 430MW Cas Tresorer combined-cycle gas turbine plant in Mallorca and a 34MW unit of the utility's 270MW Mahon diesel and fuel oil-fired plant in Menorca. These batteries would enable Endesa to place 182MW of Balearic thermal capacity on cold standby to ensure security of supply on the islands.

Endesa and Deloitte have also proposed converting three other units of the Mahon plant with a combined 138MW of installed capacity to run on gas. This would be part of a wider conversion of Endesa's older fuel oil and diesel-run power plants that dominate power generation in Spain's other island group — the Canaries.

Endesa has proposed building an 11MW gas-fired plant for the Balearic island of Formentera to replace the current fuel oil-powered unit by 2024 and provide back-up for power grid operator REE's planned ramp-up of interconnection with the nearby island of Ibiza.

Reaching carbon neutrality on the Balearic Islands by 2040 relies partly on REE's planned increase of interconnection between Mallorca and the mainland to 650MW of commercial capacity by the end of this decade from the current 400MW, as well as sufficient reinforcement of interconnection between the islands for them to work as a single power system.

If complete interconnection between the islands is not achieved in 2040, more renewables and storage capacity would be required on some islands, such as Formentera and Menorca.

Menorca recently was reconnected to the Balearic power system with 100MW of interconnection capacity, having spent three years in isolation after a ship's anchor severed the previous cable.

The roadmap for the Canary Islands, which at 1,000km from mainland Spain cannot benefit from interconnection, includes ramping up renewables capacity to 10-11GW in 2040 from about 600MW currently, with a wind-to-solar ratio of 25:75. It also includes 20-25GWh of batteries.

The roadmap prices the additional investments required to achieve carbon neutrality on Spain's islands by 2040 at €6-7bn ($6.8-7.9bn) for the Balearics and €12-19bn for the Canaries, but highlights that the savings from replacing diesel and fuel oil-fired plants with gas and renewables is likely to bring down generation costs on the Canaries by 40pc from current levels to €70-90/MWh and on the Balearic Islands by about 55pc to €50-55/MWh.

By Jonathan Gleave

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