The grid couldn't give a Barcelona factory more power, so it bought a 3.87 MWh battery instead of waiting
Alcalá Industrial, part of Grupo Cosmos, needed more power at its plant in VGP Park Martorell, near Barcelona. The grid connection couldn't supply it soon. Installer Prymos Energy fitted 750 kWp of solar and a 3.87 MWh, 1,260 kW battery behind the meter, running since early September 2026. No cost was published.
Most battery stories are about saving money. This one is about getting enough power at all.
Alcalá Industrial wanted to lift production at its Martorell plant. Its grid connection could not deliver the extra power. Asking the network company for a bigger connection meant a long wait and reinforcement works. So the company decided to make up the gap on site.
The kit, as reported by pv magazine España on 13 October 2026:
- Solar: 750 kWp on the roof. The plant already had 100 kWp, and 650 kWp was added.
- Battery: 18 cabinets of 215 kWh each from Risen Energy, 3.87 MWh in total, with 1,260 kW of output. LFP cells, liquid cooled.
- Control: an energy management system from Enfasys runs solar, battery and load together.
Two numbers matter for buyers. kW is how hard the battery can push, like the width of a hose. MWh is how much it holds, like the size of the tank. At full push, this battery runs about three hours, by our arithmetic.
How it works day to day. The battery fills from spare solar on workdays and can reach 100% over the weekend. During the week it covers some night load and adds power during production hours, so the plant can run full shifts above its contracted grid power. Prymos says the plant can keep its production pace for three straight days with no sun without going over that limit.
Analogy: the grid is a thin water pipe into your shed. You need more water at peak times than the pipe can carry. Instead of waiting months to dig up the street for a fatter pipe, you put a big tank in the yard and top it up whenever the pipe and the roof can spare it.
And when the bigger connection does arrive? Prymos says the battery can switch jobs: trade on the wholesale market, or be split up and moved to other group sites. The cabinets are modular, so the asset is not stuck doing one task.
Reported results: about 960 MWh of solar a year, more than 30% energy self-sufficiency, and about 247.7 tonnes of CO2 a year saved, a 38% cut in the plant's electricity footprint.
Good: A clear reason to buy that is not a payback sum. If the grid is your bottleneck, a battery can be capacity you can install now.
Bad: No price, no savings figure, no date for the grid upgrade. The numbers come from the installer.
Ugly: This only works because the load was modelled carefully against the contracted limit. Get the sizing wrong and the plant trips over its limit on the fourth cloudy day.
Soft next step: if growth is stuck behind a grid upgrade, ask your network for the wait time and your peak shortfall in kW and hours. Size the battery's kW to the gap and its kWh to the hours. Then a short consult at Sovryn Energy /consult if you want that checked against your load data.
Source: pv magazine España, 13 Oct 2026 - La falta de potencia de red lleva a una fábrica de Martorell a instalar 3,87 MWh de baterías. Primary for site, owner, 750 kWp (100 + 650), 3.87 MWh / 1,260 kW, 18 x 215 kWh Risen iCon LFP cabinets, Enfasys EMS, early Sep 2026 start, grid-capacity reason, three sunless days claim, ~960 MWh/yr, >30% self-sufficiency, 247.7 t CO2/yr, 38% footprint cut, later arbitrage or split-and-move options.