ACCIONA Energía is now allocating 2,000 MW of wind-power capacity to provide adjustment services to the electric power system in Spain. This represents a new milestone in terms of the full participation of renewable sources to the grid and at high levels of penetration.
The accreditation (which requires renewables to pass the same tests as conventional sources) is issued by Red Eléctrica de España (REE), the technical operator of the system in Spain. REE is responsible for grid operation to ensure optimal quality and security conditions.
ACCIONA says it became the first company in the world to provide ancillary or adjustment services to the grid by solely increasing generation from wind power, in a field exclusively reserved for conventional energy.
The so-called “adjustment services,” also known as ancillary or balance services, are in place to ensure the constant balance between power generation and demand, and they are remunerated. This balance is essential, given that all the electricity produced at a given time has to be consumed at that moment. If not corrected in time, any decoupling between supply and demand could jeopardize the quality of the electricity supply.
Less than a year ago, ACCIONA achieved a milestone in this area by becoming the first company in the world to provide adjustment services by solely increasing generation from wind power, in a field exclusively reserved for conventional energy.
Last February, a number of wind farms operated by ACCIONA increased their output by more than 50 MW in response to an instruction from the system operator. At the time, the company had accreditation for 1,000 MW, and since then a further 1,000 MW have been accredited.
These 2,000 MW represent 42% of ACCIONA’s wind-power capacity in the Spanish market. The company’s objective is to reach 3,500 MW of wind-based capacity to participate in adjustment services: technical restrictions markets, tertiary control and management of deviations, plus a certain capacity for secondary control still pending award.
Read the full release here.
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