Spain and France There is a historic energy interconnection gap, and now both countries are starting to lay the groundwork to at least try to alleviate this problem. The Spanish and French Governments have agreed to launch a bilateral commission to promote the construction of two new electricity connections across the Pyrenees and to directly address the technical and financial aspects of the project. Future submarine corridor to carry green hydrogen between both countries.
vIce President and Ecological Transition Minister Teresa RiberaIt was stated that a meeting was held in Paris this Tuesday with French Economy Ministers Bruno Le Maire and Regional Cohesion Minister Christophe Béchu, and a “fundamental agreement” emerged to promote energy connections between the two countries. A joint “firm will” to strengthen interconnectors was expressed and a common goal was agreed to “immediately meet” bilateral ministerial groups to develop both electricity interconnections and green hydrogen.
Spain, France and Portugal agreed to promote the first major hydrogen corridor in the European Union, and later added Germany to the initiative. A pharaonic project called H2Med, with planned investments of around 2.5 billion euros, aims to be the key to supporting the renewable hydrogen revolution that will replace natural gas in economic sectors where electrification is difficult or impossible.
So far, gas transport operators in all countries (Enagás in the case of Spain) have worked on technical issues to design pipeline layouts and determine the total cost of the project, which will be partly financed with European funds. Enagás estimated the cost of the infrastructure that will be on Spanish territory at 1,000 million euros, but the exact distribution of the necessary investments among all countries participating in the project and the infrastructure that will also be financed by hydrogen consumers has not yet been determined. The bilateral commission between the Spanish and French governments will address this issue directly.
Three electrical interconnects
Madrid and Paris will also try to encourage basic electrical connections between both countries. Spain has a huge interconnection gap with France, especially in electricity; There is currently just under 3,000 MW of carrying capacity between the two countries, equivalent to 2.8% of Spanish electric power alone. Both countries envisioned the implementation of three new interconnections, which caused huge delays and was met with France’s reluctance to promote them, especially in recent years.
Spain and France succeeded Unblock the construction of a new link via the Bay of Biscay The interconnection will increase to 5,000 MW with an investment of 2,800 million, which is planned to be operational in 2028 and distributed between both countries. Now they are waiting Promoting two other connections across the Pyrenees, Navarra and Aragon are scheduled to be ready in 2030.
Announced by Teresa Ribera on Tuesday, the bilateral commission must now make progress in the design of the roads of both connections, as well as in the distribution of costs. There are projects that the managers of the electricity transmission networks of the two countries (Red Eléctrica in the case of Spain) are already working on, but the Governments are now planning to arrange and approve the best alternatives and schedule.
The very low electricity connection between Spain and France remains below 3% (2,800 MW) of energy, although the community’s target is to reach 10% in 2020 and 15% in 2030. It is planned to become operational in 2028. With the new submarine connection via the Bay of Biscay reaching 5,000 MW and two other connections planned for 2030 via Navarra and Aragon, the interconnection will increase to 8,000 MW. In other words, even with three connections, the minimum level required by the EU will not be reached and Spain will continue to be seen as an energy island. And this planned connection of 8,000 MW represents just under 7% of the current installed capacity in Spain.