The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITECO) has awarded more than €160 million (US$183 million) to 40 clean energy manufacturing projects, including three for solar PV.
The provisional results for the RENOVAL 2 programme were released last week by The Institute for Diversification and Energy Saving (IDAE in Spanish), which is in charge of the programme.
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Unlike the previous programme, which awarded more than €210 million to seven solar manufacturing projects last year, none of the solar PV funding went to solar module manufacturing.
Two of the solar PV projects awarded financing were to Spanish inverter manufacturer Power Electronics and its subsidiary Power Metal Works with €7.6 million and €1.4 million, respectively. Both projects will be located in the eastern region of Valencia.
The solar inverter and energy storage manufacturer recently unveiled it had reached 170GW of installed AC power globally, and aims to install a further 20GW by the end of the year to reach 190GW.
The third solar manufacturing project allocated funding was England-based tracker provider Cambridge Energy, for its tracker manufacturing facility in the southeastern region of Murcia, which received €750,000.
Additionally, 11 energy storage-related manufacturing projects receiving funding.
This includes the €81 million awarded to Hithium Spain Innovation for the construction of a battery energy storage system and cell plant in the northern region of Navarre. This was the largest single award for a project and comprised around half of all the funding given out in this round.
According to MITECO, the support programme aims to strengthen Spain’s “leadership in clean technologies”. The Ministry claimed that Spain has established manufacturing capacity for “more than 60%” of the components in the solar value chain.
All the projects allocated funding will have 48 months to carry out the construction covered by the RENOVAL 2 programme.
Underfunded second edition
After awarding nearly €300 million in the first edition of the RENOVAL programme, the second iteration awarded almost half that amount, despite the Spanish government allocating €355 million for RENOVAL 2 earlier this year.
Last year, solar PV manufacturing alone received more funding last year than all the technologies combined in RENOVAL 2, covering almost the entire supply chain.
The funds will be provided through Spain’s recovery and resilience plan (PRTR) under NextGenEU, which aims to incentivise the production of equipment and components for solar panels, batteries, wind and electrolysers, among other technologies.
The full list of projects awarded funding can be accessed here (in Spanish).
