Portugal’s grid is highly integrated with its Spanish neighbor, which is how the power outage spread easily westward. Spain, in turn, is connected by just a few lines to France.
Nuclear-friendly France is, according to Spain and Portugal at least, is delaying new links to prevent cheap solar and wind energy from flooding the French market. French grid operator RTE denies this. Both a cable via the Bay of Biscay and an overland powerline should address the shortage.
“France has no interest in accelerating our interconnections for its nuclear energy,” Carvalho told El País last week in an interview where she also called for pressure from Brussels.
“Having an interconnected system is good for everyone,” a senior EU official explained last month, adding that connections make it easier to manage dramatic power-supply changes.
The European Parliament last week voted in favor of a resolution calling for a major expansion of power connections across the bloc. “The Iberian blackout shows painfully how vulnerable our grids still are,” Anna Stürgkh, the lead MEP on the file, told POLITICO.
The Austrian liberal called on the Commission in Brussels to “act decisively to prioritize planning and coordination on grids and storage.” Otherwise, “we’ll keep lurching from one crisis to the next,” she said.
Gabriel Gavin contributed to this report.
