The European industry body is having a major push on the benefits of co-locating solar with wind power and energy storage, or both, and will include storage advocacy in its future contact with policymakers.
PV trade body SolarPower Europe is celebrating its 40th anniversary with the tagline SolarPower Europe: solar, storage, and flexibility, and has announced plans for a Battery Storage Europe platform to highlight case studies and regulatory best practice.
The platform will also strengthen SolarPower Europe’s storage policy advocacy work, the association said.
The trade body recently called on the European Commission and European Union member states to legislate a European Union grid flexibility package to include an energy storage action plan with the aim of deploying at least 10 times more battery energy storage by 2030.
Investment in energy storage and grid flexibility, SolarPower Europe told EU energy ministers at a recent summit in Brussels, can structurally decouple the European economy from imported fossil fuels, making energy more affordable, less volatile, and more secure.
SolarPower Europe’s “Embracing the benefits of hybrid PV systems” study estimated solar sites combined with energy storage, wind power, or both could produce a levelized cost of energy 10% lower than that from pure-solar projects.
The trade body has pointed out regulatory bottlenecks are preventing Europe realizing the full benefits of such hybrid sites.
Brussels-based SolarPower Europe wants solar hybrid facilities integrated into grid planning, flexibility strategies, and financing mechanisms as recognition of their key contribution to energy security, price competitiveness, and decarbonization.
Grid connection for such sites should be accelerated, says the trade body, with the help of grid capacity maps to aid co-location, as happens in Australia and Denmark. Priority should be given to hybridizing existing energy projects, to better use existing grid connections, the association said.
SolarPower Europe suggested the simplified permitting procedures outlined in the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive of 2023 should also apply to hybrid parks, namely, simpler processes, a “one-stop-shop” approach, and the option of joint permit applications for different assets at the same grid connection points. Renewables Acceleration Zones should support hybridization, rather than the separate solar and wind zones delineated in Austria, said the organization.
Hybridized solar sites should also be able to participate in conventional renewable energy auctions, the membership body said.
Grid tariffs should be used to decentralize energy generation, said SolarPower Europe, in favor of renewable energy sites with energy storage. High grid connection fees should be reduced and the practice of double charging energy storage facilities with grid fees – for charging from and exporting to electricity networks – should be removed.
The trade body has also called for clean electricity which has been stored, rather than exported directly into the grid, to generate guarantees of origin, a move which would require a new measurement framework.
