One criticism made about renewable energy is that it’s not possible to predict when and how much of it will be produced at any given time. Now a pioneering project being carried out in Spain solves this problem by creating a system to store electricity on a large scale.

The European Union’s stoRE project, which includes the participation of Spanish companies Endesa, Televent, Isotrol e Ingeteam, is Europe’s most significant project of this type for island environments. Its main goal is to show that large-scale systems for energy storage are viable both technically and economically.

The electricity that we have at home or at work to turn on the lights or the microwave oven is generated in a power plant at the time that we consume it. It travels from the plant over electricity grids and distribution networks to the end user where it is directly consumed. While storage mechanisms do exist, until now they have not been viable on a large scale given their high cost, among other reasons.

The stoRE project has proven that it is possible to store the electricity that is produced by renewable energy. This is beneficial both for the electricity generation system and for the environment.

stoRE was a pioneering project in Spain for researching energy storage in island environments. It began in 2008 and by early 2014 the first three storage plants were already operative and connected to Spain’s electricity grid. Located on the Canary Islands, the facilities are at Endesa’s Gomera, La Palma and Gran Canaria generation plants. The latter of these three has the largest energy storage capacity.