- The installations connected to the grid of i-DE, Iberdrola’s distribution company in Spain, have a combined capacity of more than 900 MW, the equivalent of two large combined cycle plants.
- 98% of self-consumers feed energy into the grid during the day and recover it when they need it.
Iberdrola has now exceeded 70,000 self-consumption installations connected to its grid after beating its record number of additions in a single month in August, with more than 6,100 new self-consumers contributing a total of 63 new MW of green generation fully integrated into the low and medium voltage grids.
Altogether, the self-consumption installations connected to the grid of i-DE, Iberdrola’s distribution company in Spain, have a capacity of more than 900 MW, the equivalent of the capacity of two large combined cycle generation plants which, thanks to self-consumption, can be replaced by sustainable and indigenous sources.
The company facilitates access to self-consumption throughout Spain. By number of connections, the Valencian Community stands out with more than 28,000 installations on the grid. It is followed by Madrid and the Region of Murcia, with more than 20,000 and almost 9,000 connected installations, respectively.
i-DE has processed the applications for self-consumption connection in record time, even improving on the demanding deadlines established by current legislation, which is a sign of the company’s firm commitment to the energy transition towards more sustainable generation sources.
To facilitate the processing of accesses, the company has developed an interactive geographical capacity map, available to any user through the i-DE website (www.i-de.es). This map makes it possible to consult the capacity of the network operated by the company and to identify the location of the connection points.
A new form of storage
98% of Iberdrola’s self-consumers choose to return the surplus to the grid during the day once their energy demands have been met through the different discharge methods (individual or collective), which allows them to get the most out of their investment. In this way, i-DE’s grids act as a large energy storage battery for its customers as they can access the surplus generated when they need it, at no additional cost.
The grids managed by Iberdrola have been able to respond to the strong rate of increase in self-consumption without saturation or overloads and maintaining high levels of supply quality thanks to the heavy investments made in recent years. The company plans to allocate €2.6 billion until 2024 to the digitalisation and innovation of its grids in Spain.
This effort has allowed i-DE to carry out new developments in order to measure in real time both the consumption and the load level of all its installations. Through the use of Artificial Intelligence, the company is able to process this information to anticipate the grids that will need reinforcements in the event of higher load levels due to the implementation of new self-consumption installations. Thanks to this planning, i-De can guarantee the maintenance of the electricity supply without alterations to all homes and industries.
i-DE manages and maintains 270,000 kilometres of electric power distribution lines that extend across ten autonomous communities and 25 provinces, covering an area of 200,340 square kilometres. It also has more than 97,000 transformation centres and more than 1,100 substations to serve its more than eleven million customers.
Leader in self-consumption marketing
As part of its commitment to accelerating the energy transition, Iberdrola not only promotes self-consumption by encouraging its incorporation into the energy system through its grids, but also leads the market, managing 40% of the country’s self-consumption customers. So far this year, the company has increased its portfolio of self-consumption customers by 150%.
Iberdrola, a pioneer in offering self-consumption for customers with single-family homes, has adapted to different needs to make solar self-consumption available to all its customers through its new Smart Solar solutions.
Currently, more than two-thirds of the population in Spain lives in high-rise buildings. For this segment, the energy company offers collective self-consumption alternatives that include the possibility of ceding the roof space to Iberdrola so that it can take on the installation of the photovoltaic system, facilitating access to the green energy generated for people living nearby.
As for the possibility of compensating the energy dumped into the grid, Iberdrola’s customers do not have any type of floor for its valuation, so that their bill can be as low as zero euros. In addition, it has just launched the Solar Cloud service, which, in the event that there are still surpluses, allows them to be diverted for consumption in another residence.
