Oct 1, 2025
France, Portugal, and Spain will discuss ways to accelerate the development of power connections.
In the upcoming weeks, France, Portugal, and Spain will discuss ways to accelerate power interconnector projects, as stated by Portugal's energy minister to Reuters, following a major blackout in April that pushed Portugal to enhance its electricity connections. The April outage underscored the limited electricity ties between Spain, Portugal, and the rest of Europe, with experts suggesting the impact could have been mitigated with more interconnectors.
Maria da Graca Carvalho noted that after the blackout, there was increased pressure on the European Commission and France, which led to the French government requesting a meeting. She indicated these talks would occur in early October and expressed optimism that France is inclined to expedite projects, especially since the European Investment Bank will support the Bay of Biscay interconnector between Spain and France with €1.6 billion.
She acknowledged that while these are positive developments, an environmental assessment of the Bay of Biscay link needs to be finalized before moving forward. The French energy ministry did not respond to requests for comments, and Spain's energy ministry also refrained from commenting on the meeting.
There has been blame exchanged between grid and power plant operators regarding the causes of the April blackout, with an EU investigation still underway. ENTSO-E, the European network of transmission system operators, is set to release part of its investigation, detailing network conditions at the time of the outage.
Efforts to strengthen the existing interconnector between France and Spain are expected to be completed this year, while the Bay of Biscay link is anticipated to finish by 2028. Spain and Portugal have previously accused France of delaying new interconnectors. The French grid operator RTE has evaluated two more links with Spain over the Pyrenees, but noted that the benefits would primarily go to areas outside France.
Currently, only 3% of Iberia's electricity capacity is connected to its European neighbors, significantly lower than the EU’s goal for countries to achieve 15% by 2030.
Maria da Graca Carvalho noted that after the blackout, there was increased pressure on the European Commission and France, which led to the French government requesting a meeting. She indicated these talks would occur in early October and expressed optimism that France is inclined to expedite projects, especially since the European Investment Bank will support the Bay of Biscay interconnector between Spain and France with €1.6 billion.
She acknowledged that while these are positive developments, an environmental assessment of the Bay of Biscay link needs to be finalized before moving forward. The French energy ministry did not respond to requests for comments, and Spain's energy ministry also refrained from commenting on the meeting.
There has been blame exchanged between grid and power plant operators regarding the causes of the April blackout, with an EU investigation still underway. ENTSO-E, the European network of transmission system operators, is set to release part of its investigation, detailing network conditions at the time of the outage.
Efforts to strengthen the existing interconnector between France and Spain are expected to be completed this year, while the Bay of Biscay link is anticipated to finish by 2028. Spain and Portugal have previously accused France of delaying new interconnectors. The French grid operator RTE has evaluated two more links with Spain over the Pyrenees, but noted that the benefits would primarily go to areas outside France.
Currently, only 3% of Iberia's electricity capacity is connected to its European neighbors, significantly lower than the EU’s goal for countries to achieve 15% by 2030.