Portugal plans energy storage to boost renewables
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Portugal’s government presented a National Energy Storage Strategy, marking the first time the country has outlined a long-term vision for energy storage. The strategy recognizes storage’s importance for securing energy supplies, stabilizing the electrical system, and integrating increasing amounts of renewable energy production.
Currently, simply increasing renewable energy capacity is not enough to improve the system. Portugal needs to create conditions for more effective integration of this energy.
Energy storage can help manage the system, shift energy over time, reduce waste from renewable sources, quickly address imbalances between production and consumption, and lessen reliance on fossil fuels during peak demand. The strategy sets ambitious goals of 6.9 GW of storage capacity by 2030 and 9.76 GW by 2040. It also adopts principles of technological neutrality, ensuring non-discriminatory participation in energy markets and allowing for combined revenue sources.
The document acknowledges storage systems can take many forms and provide various services, avoiding limitations to single technologies or uses. A public consultation is now underway to refine the strategy, including adding goals measured in GWh to complement existing GW targets. Portugal also intends to distinguish between large-scale storage and distributed resources, such as those installed in businesses, buildings, or electric vehicles, recognizing that coordinating these smaller assets through aggregators or “Virtual Power Plants” will be key to maximizing performance.
The strategy emphasizes that storage performance increasingly depends on digital systems capable of combining forecasts, market prices, network needs, and asset status to optimize charging, discharging, and service provision.
