The government is working on a legal reform aimed at increasing security. electrical networks in front power outage risk for malfunctions and plans to retroactively expand some new protection requirements and make them mandatory at existing facilities. legislative change to force big electric reforms of distribution networks for the implementation of additional equipment.
HE ministry of industryHe is currently working on a royal decree led by the incumbent Héctor Gómez, which he plans to amend several technical instructions to incorporate new safety requirements that will mandate improvements to the hundreds of thousands of transformers already in operation across Spain. most of them are part of nets of the distribution Endesa, Iberdrola and Naturgy.
The new regulation, which includes proposals submitted during the first hearing, prepared by the Executive, which is currently in second-stage consultations with the energy and industry sector and administrations, will require the installation of extra safeguards to prevent the risk of overloading. in some 270,000 transformers. Companies will have three to six years to run the business, depending on the transformer type.
Over 60 million investments
Establishing a mandatory reform plan against grid overloads, which will compel electricity companies to invest over 63.5 million euros in the coming years, according to estimates of the economic impact of future security in official documents of the ministry.
Government-administered estimates predict: iberdrola has to undertake an investment of 35.6 million euros through its distribution subsidiary I-DE; HE Endesa with the network company E-Distribución, it runs the businesses of 18.4 million people; nature, 7.7 million more with Unión Fenosa Distribución; And? PDEIt assumes 3.2 million through its various subsidiaries in the distribution business.
The government justifies the need to apply these extra safety measures retroactively by the fact that current regulations allow utility companies not to install equipment against overloads if they anticipate that the risk of overvoltage will only be final. “However, in many cases where it was predicted at the time that the transformer in question would not operate with overloads, the situation is different today,” Industria says.