NEWS

Portugal has made grid-forming capability mandatory for large battery storage plants, pv magazine reported on 28 October. http://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/10/28/portugal-makes-grid-forming-mandatory-for-large-battery-storage-plants/ For a developer with in-house design capacity, this is a specification decision, not a procurement footnote. It sits in the inverter choice, the control architecture and the commissioning test plan from day one. Retrofitting is the costly…

Encavis has signed what it describes as its first hybrid solar-wind PPA in Spain: 199 MW from two solar parks and three wind farms in Aragón, 60 GWh a year, over 3.5 years. https://pv-magazine.com/2026/10/22/encavis-signs-first-solar-wind-ppa-with-spanish-supplier The pairing is the point. Solar and wind generate in different hours, so a combined profile gives the offtaker a flatter…

Portugal’s first battery auction is finally real. The final rules landed on 22 October, and three things changed that most people have not noticed yet. For context: 750 MVA of grid capacity for standalone storage, plus 300 MVA for renewables with co-located batteries, at 400 kV nodes. Ascending clock from 0 EUR/MVA, pay-as-clear, merchant revenue…

Solar earned 43% to 50% of the baseload price in Spain, Germany and Greece in the 2026 energy-crisis window, against 85% to 91% in 2022. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/10/14/europes-second-energy-crisis-largely-skipped-the-solar-hours/ The same analysis shows why. Night-time day-ahead prices rose by €36 to €51/MWh versus 2025, while midday prices moved between -€4 and +€14/MWh. Spain recorded 547 negative-price hours in…

Portugal has delayed the launch of its two storage tenders, which together allocate 1,050 MVA of grid injection capacity, after the public consultation on the terms. The launch had been set for 14 September. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/09/23/portugal-postpones-renewables-plus-storage-auctions/ The next step is publication of the final terms. No new date has been given. For buyers and sellers of…

Europe’s biggest battery just got a lender queue 30 deep. https://www.energyglobal.com/energy-storage/22102026/bw-ess-secures-international-financing-for-400-mw1424-mwh-hams-hall-bess/ BW ESS has lined up debt financing for Phase 2 of its Hams Hall BESS in the West Midlands, taking the project to 400 MW / 1,424 MWh — on track to be Europe’s largest operational battery by megawatt-hours at commercial operations date. OCBC,…

Spanish Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) prices fell 3.5% in September while Pexapark’s European composite rose 5% — Spain was the only major market moving the other way. http://www.pv-magazine.es/2026/10/13/los-precios-de-los-ppa-caen-un-35-en-espana-mientras-aumentan-un-5-en-europa/ Behind that divergence sits a quieter trend: hybrid solar-plus-storage PPAs hit a monthly high in September, and flexibility agreements more than doubled from August. Buyers are increasingly…

Akuo just sold a 500+ MW portfolio of development-stage solar projects in Castilla y León and Andalusia to Dos Grados — a French independent power producer (IPP) recycling greenfield capital into a Spanish buyer’s balance sheet. https://www.pv-tech.org/dos-grados-acquires-500mw-solar-projects-from-akuo-in-spain/ It’s a pattern we see from the other side of the table most weeks: a developer takes a…

ERSE has closed Consulta Pública n.º 142/2026 on stabilising the regulation charges applied across Portugal’s electricity system (SEN) — confirmed this week on erse.pt, under Decreto-Lei n.º 15/2022. https://www.erse.pt/atividade/consultas-publicas/consulta-p%C3%BAblica-n%C2%BA-142/ It reads as a technical housekeeping exercise — two chapters of the Manual de Procedimentos and the Regulamento Tarifário amended for stability. For anyone underwriting a…

Wood Mackenzie 2026 LCOE: four-hour storage is cheaper than gas peakers in all 43 markets modelled. What it means for the Gulf, Africa and Iberia.