The European Investment Bank (BEI) promised on Monday to unlock 1.6 billion euros to improve electric interconnection between France and Spain, insistently claimed by Madrid from the giant failure that affected the Iberian Peninsula on April 28. This agreement, signed in the presence of the European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen, will be accustomed to the “strategy” to the “400 kilometers interconnection, including the miles of 300000000. Be, located in the” Gulf of Gascogne, “said the investment bank in a press release.
It will materialize in the form of loans to Red Eléctrica, the Spanish manager of the transport network, as well as in RTE, its French counterpart, and will allow “to carry out the exchange capacity” between the two countries “from 2,800 to 5,000 megawatts (MW),” added the press release. This interconnection, the first of underwater nature between France and Spain, “will help to guarantee cleaner, safest and most affordable electricity,” said the institution chaired by Nadia Calviño, former minister of the economy of the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“Energy Island”
This announcement occurs when Spain and Portugal have been asking for an improvement in electrical links between continental Europe and the Iberian Peninsula for years, which currently functions as an “Energy Island”, with only 3% of interconnections. This situation was highlighted by the mass energy failure that affected Spain and Portugal on April 28. This cut, whose origin remains at this unknown stage, could have been less serious if the peninsula had had more interconnections with the rest of the EU, according to experts.
Given this situation, Madrid and Lisbon had requested in a letter sent on May 21 to the European Commission that acts to strengthen these electrical interconnections in “emergency”, with “a firm political and financial commitment, at all levels” of the actors in question. The objective of the European Union is that Member States have at least 15% of the production capacity interconnected by 2030, “said EIB, which reminds having provided Spain with more than 5 billion euros in funds in 2024 for energy security projects.
Source: BFM TV
