Red Eléctrica, the Spanish electricity system operator, has launched a new market that manages additional generation reserves in order to ensure demand coverage and the security of the electricity supply at all times.

This management tool is essential for the Spanish electricity system due to the growth of non-manageable renewable energies (mainly wind and photovoltaic). Proof of this is that so far this year new historical values of wind power have been reached, 16,636 MW on 18 April, as well as its contribution to demand coverage, over 61% at certain times on 19 April.

This new power reserve market, managed by Red Eléctrica, counts on the participation of all those power generators that are accredited to supply energy to the additional power reserve system.

Yesterday, the first day of implementation of the new market, up to 500 MW were allocated at certain times of the day.

This new mechanism, which is now part of the existing system operation procedures, not only responds to the changing needs of the Spanish electricity system, but also fosters the flexibility of power generation plants, in other words that they are able to adapt, in the shortest time frame possible to the demand coverage needs at all times.