The governments of Spain and Portugal, in a joint transient, have claimed on Wednesday to the European Commission a “firm political and financial commitment” in order that {the electrical} system of the Iberian Peninsula could be extra interconnected with the remainder of the continent by France. The neighboring nation has been blocking the rise on this infrastructure for years. In reality, within the letter, to which the nation has had entry, Spain and Portugal will ask for a 4 -band assembly – through which along with Madrid and Lisbon Brussels and Paris take part – in order that the Elysium provides their arm to twist.
Although each international locations have been with this declare for greater than a decade, the mass blackout of April 28 has fueled the urgency. “The event strongly affected the entire Iberian Peninsula and showed the importance of interconnectivity within the European electrical system in critical situations,” says the writing. “We consider that it is essential to reiterate – now with greater urgency – the imperative of acting decisively.”
The letter addressed to the European Energy Commissioner, the Danish Dan Jørgensen, is signed by the third vp of the Spanish Executive and Minister for the ecological transition and the demographic problem, Sara Aagesen, and the Portuguese Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria Da Graça Carvalho. This widespread entrance was agreed on Monday to press the Commission and France in order that {the electrical} interconnection with the remainder of the continent will increase. The Alliance, superior by El País, has materialized on this letter and in one other, in the identical sense, which can be despatched to the French Minister of Energy, Marc Ferracci.
Both ministers remorse that “despite the advances of recent years, the Iberian Peninsula remains an energy island”, so that they declare that the rise in transmission capability “must appear among the maximum priorities, not only for Spain and Portugal, but for the European Union as a whole.”
SUPPLY AND PRICE SECURITY
That the variety of Pyrenean cables will increase wouldn’t solely profit the safety of the availability of Spain and Portugal, but in addition to the remainder of the EU as a result of, by permitting “the full exploitation of the renewable potential in southwest Europe”, the bill for thousands and thousands of shoppers north of the Pyrenees would routinely cut back.
“Completing electrical interconnections for the Iberian Peninsula is no longer an option: it is a shared responsibility for the energy future of Europe,” they underline Aagesen and Graça Carvalho, which enchantment to increase the “single market, also in the energy sector.”
Apart from the causes that induced the abrupt fall of the availability, the power holders of the Spanish and Portuguese executives have insisted on a declare that’s on its technique to changing into historic: the rise in that Pyrenean electrical interconnection, the one one which hyperlinks with the remainder of the EU, which continues removed from the neighborhood goals and whose enlargement France has been blocked for years. The Portuguese minister meets Wednesday in Brussels with the European commissioner and can ship the letter in hand, as this newspaper superior.
The Portuguese Minister reproached France, in a latest interview, that he wouldn’t pace up the interconnections “because she has a lot of nuclear.” This power supply is remarkably dearer than wind and the Iberian photovoltaic, so the competitiveness of the French nuclear highly effective (within the palms of a public firm, the renationalized EDF, head of the second largest park of reactors on the planet) may very well be instantly affected by the progress of the renewables from the south. This is what Paris needs to keep away from in any respect prices, though that means depriving their corporations and households of fresh and low cost power of their each day.
“We are facing barriers to the domestic market, which is the pillar of European construction, and France, not supporting the speed with which we intended to build these interconnections, it is placing barriers to the domestic market,”
Along the identical traces, Aagesen mentioned in one other interview that after the traumatic zero electrical of April 28 – anédito till then in Spain and one of many largest within the historical past of the previous continent – he had arrived “the time for France to be aware that the interconnections have to arrive yes or yes.” “Europe must give certainty that this interconnection will continue to move forward,” mentioned the Spanish vp.
Pyrenean interconnection between the Peninsula and the remainder of Europe at present has a capability of two.8% of the facility era energy put in within the system, the metric that’s utilized in any such important infrastructure. The European Commission requires Member States {an electrical} interconnection with their neighbors of no less than 10% since 2020 and 15% from 2030.
When the enlargement in progress is prepared within the Vizcaya Gulf – in 2028, with the present calendar within the hand, a lot later than initially deliberate – it can rise to round 5%. Even then, the sum of the cables that hyperlink the Peninsula and France will stay removed from the neighborhood goal.
Reduce spills
A higher interconnection shouldn’t be solely elementary from the financial standpoint – to assist cut back worth peaks in each markets – and ecological – to cut back inexperienced electrical energy spills when the era is larger than demand – but in addition in provide safety key. Although nobody dares to categorically affirm that the blackout wouldn’t have occurred with extra interconnections, the specialists agree that, with a higher transmission capability, that threat would have been mitigated.
Although the historic route {of electrical} exchanges between Spain and France – whose first cable was inaugurated greater than 4 many years in the past, with a subsequent enlargement in 2015 – has been within the north sense, with the doorway of enormous sums of nuclear electrical energy gala within the Peninsula, the shifts have modified lately. In 2022, in full power disaster, a corrosion drawback within the pipes pressured half of the Gauling reactors, and Spain and Portugal have been elementary to make sure the availability of electrical energy within the second largest economic system of the twenty -seven. Without that additional contribution, Paris would have had it rather more tough.
Return with oscillations
The blackout got here preceded, because the entity that teams the European electrical operators (Entso-E) of a collection of oscillations, not solely within the Spanish community but in addition within the previous continent as an entire. In the brand new chronology of what occurred, contributed on Wednesday by Aagesen earlier than the Senate, the vp has described the primary one as “anomalous”, whose origin stays unknown.
“Half an hour before the electric zero, the agents observe at least two periods of oscillations, with variables within the system, but also interarene, outside our borders, beyond the Pyrenees it is detected that these oscillations reach the European system,” mentioned Aagesen. The first episode takes nearly 5 minutes to “cushion.” The second, lower than 1 / 4 of an hour earlier than the blackout and that the Executive qualifies as “usual”, lasts “more than three minutes.”
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