Connection points of the Mont-Negre plant to the high voltage transmission infrastructure are consistent with existing and planned development of the national grid as per Spain’s 2015-2020 Electricity Transmission Grid Planning as expressed in the feasibility report issued by Red Electrica España informing favourably with regards to the feasibility of access to the grid of the Mont-Negre plant signed by Red Eléctrica de España (REE) on 23/07/2013. This report was added to the Environmental Impact Assessment file already submitted by Ingeniería Pontificia for approval by the Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente. The status of the connection of Mont-Negre plant to the grid are as follows:

•      – Connection to the Mequinenza substation (400 kV) already in operation.
•      – Connection to Nueva Mequinenza (400 kV) substation which is already in the 2015-2020 Spain’s Electricity Transmission Grid Planning and which should be operational before the end of the construction of the Mont-Negre plant.

 

The direct download link to the 2015-2020 Electricity Transmission Grid Planning of the MInisterio de Industria, Energía y Agenda Digital of the government of Spain is:

http://www.minetad.gob.es/energia/planificacion/Planificacion.pdf

(page 57). “Storage technologies as pumped storage plants, not only allow for better usage of energy generation resource availability, but also add reliability to the operation of the electricity system as it contributes additional power availability to the system while optimising the best use of non manageable energy generation sources”.

(page. 86) The 2015-2020 Electricity Transmission Network Development Plan contains a specific group of initiatives to be undertaken for grid access and connection of new pumped storage projects.

(page. 198) “3.4.2.2.4. Grid development due to electricity storage. The significant renewable generation capacity in operation in Spain, together with the limited exchange capacity available with France, significantly add to the interest of building storage plants. The tables below include the group of grid development initiatives requested by developers of storage plants, as per the following criteria:

Initiatives related to storage projects included in the 2015-2020 Electricity Transmission Network Development Plan (Table 3.66)”

Table 3.66 shows that the new “NUEVA MEQUINENZA” 400kV, 1.100MW substation has an implicit €6.8M cost for the system and €3.65M for the developer.