Current regulations on electricity supply set out the objectives of “assuring its safety and quality, while ensuring an adequate level of linkage between production and demand”. It’s a law from 2000, still written in pesetas, where the central government implies closing the door of a substation that would supply Stellantis Vigo with very high voltage power of 220 kilovolts (kV). It feeds all the other auto factories in Spain. And in addition to that, it will prevent the repetitive voltage dips and micro-interruptions it is exposed to. The fact is that, based on the same articles of Royal Decree 1955/2000, the Executive, large investments in the network throughout Spain will overcome precisely the “problems of tension”. Only during the period 2015-2020, when the previous Red Eléctrica planning was in effect, four actions of more than 200 million euros were planned.
The first of these, Re-energizing 220 kV power transmission lines called Escalona-Foradada. “Solving the technical constraints describing the technical document of the project will reduce the costs of the system and reduce overloads or voltage problems on the said lines, these actions are necessary because of the actions to be taken to prevent congestion on several lines. Axes with interconnection flows between Aragon and Catalonia in the Pyrenees region”. Its value was 32.6 million Euros.
It is the same reason that justifies an action between Navarra and the Basque Country (Itxaso-Muruarte-Orcogoyen), with an estimated investment of 87.6 million euros in 2019, or similar projects in Saleres (Andalusia) and Almaraz (Extremadura). With the installation of new substations for “technical constraints, reduction of overloads and voltage problems”. Stellantis’ connection to the very high voltage grid was budgeted for in the previous Red Eléctrica plan.Also with an estimated investment of 66.8 million for the period 2015-2020.
Ignacio Bueno’s factory, which produces one out of every four vehicles assembled in Spain and has a 132 kV supply, experiences an average of one hundred voltage drops and micro-interruptions per year. As FARO announced yesterday, the company estimates: “The decarbonisation process into which we are immersed will mean the evolution of industrial processes towards electrification, meaning that in the very near future the plant will predictably reach these thresholds, thus limiting industrial plans for the future. “.