Following a recent ten-hour blackout, Portugal is reportedly seeking intervention from the European Commission to pressure France regarding delayed electricity supply expansion.
According to the Financial Times, Portugal, through Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho, intends to request that the European Commission put pressure on France concerning its limited electricity provision. This action stems from the April 28 power outage that affected millions in Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France for up to ten hours.
Portugal is allegedly holding France accountable for its failure to finalize and expand crucial electricity interconnections with Spain. Lisbon contends that these shortcomings intensified the blackout by hindering cross-border energy support. The power failure is considered one of the most significant in recent European history.
Carvalho asserts that Brussels possesses the authority to mediate the situation under EU law, pointing out that the inadequate interconnections between France and Spain continue to impede the EU’s internal energy market.
“We will involve the president of the EC on this to make sure that we are all integrated,” she stated, hoping for a resolution. “This is a European question, it’s not a question between the three countries.”
She urged the Commission to intervene if the internal market is compromised, emphasizing its power to compel France to expedite infrastructure development.
The FT noted that the Iberian Peninsula has some of the lowest energy connectivity levels in the EU. Power links between France and Spain were automatically disconnected to protect the broader European grid after Spain’s system started to collapse.
Earlier this week, Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen reported that an initial investigation revealed that power generation failures in the provinces of Granada, Badajoz, and Seville triggered the chain reaction of grid disconnections.
A preliminary technical assessment by Entso-E, the European association of transmission system operators, indicated that 2.2 gigawatts of capacity went offline in southern Spain less than a minute before the complete system failure. The underlying causes of the substation failures are still being investigated.
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