Firms scramble for battery power in Spain and Portugal
On 28 April last year, Portugal and Spain went dark for several hours.
Several European firms scrambled for battery power following widespread power outages in Portugal and Spain on April 28th. The massive failure brought production lines to a halt, prompting companies to invest in backup systems. For Spanish meat processing firm Fribin, the outage resulted in significant losses, with hundreds of thousands of euros in discarded meat and halted production lines.
Fribin decided to invest in battery storage, with the first five megawatt-hour module purchased in June 2025 and a second module ordered in early 2026. Battery storage capacity in Spain rose sevenfold since April, with additional funding awarded by the IDAE for 133 energy storage projects totaling 2,400MW. In Portugal, Vista Alegre installed energy storage systems in 2022, citing the EU's Recovery and Resilience Plan and the blackout as catalysts.
Primus Ceramics also installed battery backup systems in 2022, leveraging the blackout to enhance production resilience. Both companies anticipate further investment in battery storage to ensure uninterrupted operations amidst the growing threat of power disruptions.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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