The electric blackout of Spain and Portugal of April 28 underlines the urgency of accompanying the Energy transition de la UEuropean nion (EU) with a greater investment in expanding, strengthening and more flexible electric transport network, as well as in increasing the electrical storage capacity and interconnections between countries to ensure the stability, effectiveness and resistance of the entire European electricity Before possible incidents, as they have been insisting many sector reports for years.
The EU Energy Energy Regulators Cooperation Agency (Acer) points out in its December 2024 report that the congestion problems in the European Electric Red are increasing annually (gigawatts/hour) because of the lack of expansion of infrastructure to accompany them to the increase in demand and the expansion of renewables.
The growing percentage of electricity generated by FSolar and windings In the EU, with a variable, discontinuous production, very dispersed geographically and away from the consumption centers, the pressure and congestion in a European electricity grid increases, too much and with, of distribution and management of the energy peaks.
The energy in 2024 in the EU and the solar generated another 11.1%, details the European electricity analysis 2025 of the think tank Ember : 23.2% wind and 17% solar, indicates Red Eléctrica. The European agency Acer points out that the Wind generation in the EU will double Facing 2030 and, so the electricity grid must prepare to manage these flows.
Investments in the improvement and expansion of electric transport networks have one of euros in the EU as a whole, the ‘report on the European investment deficit in the 2024 climate of the 2024 of the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE) estimates. The European Agency Acer points out that investments in the electricity network to face the energy transition. Investments in Electrical storage systemsas batteries, it also has an investment deficit of 500 million annually in the EU, the I4CE report requires.
Germanyfor example, lost 19 teravatos/hour (TW/h) of wind electric production in 2023 () because of the congestion of your electric grid And the impossibility of transporting that energy to the consumer areas, indicates the Federal German network agency. To cover the demand, Germany had to generate 14 TW/h of electricity with Coal and Gas Centralswith in 2023.
Obsolete distribution network
The European Commission already warned in a 2023 report that 40% of the EU’s electricity transport and distribution network has and requires a urgent modernization. In addition, the network expansion and improvement plans in numerous EU states have not been updated to comply with the new national forecast for solar and wind energy production and are based on the management of minors renewable energy flows, the report indicates Put the mission in transmission: Networks for the Energy Transition of Europe of 2024 of Ember. With the planned levels of wind and solar energy generation, according to the report. But in FrancePortugal, IrelandPoland, LithuaniaGreece, RumaniaBulgaria and Luxembourg to be able to manage the real flow of solar energy. About Germany, Latvia and Estonia were missing data.
Another endemic problem of the European electricity network is its interconnections deficit between EU states. The European Agency Acer indicates that the planned investment plans will increase the interconnections by 2030 to 34 Gigavatios (GW) ,. Despite the EU commitments for more than 20 years, the electrical interconnection of the Iberian Peninsula with France is very poor by unilateral decision of the French government. The electrical interconnection ratio of Spain with France, when the EU’s commitment was that it had reached at least 10% in 2025. This causes that Red Electrica indicates.
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