The Council of Ministers will approve on Tuesday 750 million euros in urgent investments that are incorporated into the current planning of electric power transport networks “to increase the resilience of the network” and facilitate the deployment of renewables after the historic blackout of April 28.
This is the second punctual modification of the current network planning (2021-2026), which dates back to March 2022, after which it was approved in April 2024. The list of 65 urgent actions (installation of synchronous compensators, reactances, endowment of relays …) adds a global amount of 749.8 million, according to the draft of the agreement to which the agreement has had.
The text of the agreement, signed by the Third Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demograph in particular of renewable energy ”, the feeding of new axes of the AVE network; and “support for the distribution network and the new demand for large consumers, mainly industrial.”
According to ecological transition, this set of actions, “intended to incorporate additional tools to the networks that facilitate voltage control, the stability against oscillations and in general, the reinforcement of the electrical system, both in the peninsula and in the non -peninsular and Balearic territories”, “will facilitate the progressive integration of renewables and storage” to meet the objectives of the National Plan Integrated Plan of Energy and Climate which includes an 81% renewable electricity by 2030, “and reduce consumers’ bill.” New positions are also included to allow emergency generation connection in the Canary Islands.
The agreement is issued, among other provisions, under Royal Decree-Law approved on June 24, after the report of the government’s expert commission on the blackout. The opinion detected failures in the planning of the reserve power by the system operator, Electric Red, the improper shooting of renewable generation facilities and a malfunction of the conventional generation that had to control tension in the face of the anomalous oscillations that, as Eldiario.es advanced, had their origin in the meglanta Núñez de Balboa de Iberdrola in Extremadura.
That decree, which is pending validation in the Congress of Deputies at a time of great parliamentary weakness of the Government after the corruption scandal of the previous Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, provides in its article 6 “that the Council of Ministers will approve a list of specific actions for the control of voltage, the stability before oscillations and the reinforcement of the resilience of the electrical system, which are incorporated into Red ”, indicates the agreement to be approved on Tuesday.
The actions include the installation of compensators synchronous for the first time in the Peninsula, as well as the incorporation of new units in the islands. These devices provide dynamic control of the tension from the transport network and, given the most local character of voltage control, are geographically distributed so that they allow to strengthen this control in the different areas of the system, complementing the equipment and systems with which the system already has the system for that function.
Thus, eight of these synchronous compensers are located distributed in different areas of the Peninsula, two others in the Canarian electrical systems (La Palma and Lanzarote, complementing those already planned in Gran Canaria and Tenerife), while the one already planned in Mallorca is advanced with this modification.
In addition, these compensators contribute inertia to the system and allow increasing the capacity available in the network for new renewable generation, particularly in non -peninsular systems.
About 40% of the approved investment (almost 290 million) is concentrated in Andalusia and Extremadura, the two autonomous communities in which that historic peninsular zero began, both with strong renewable penetration. 97.2 million are also allocated to both archipelagos.
By regions, Andalusia is allocated 147.3 million already Extremadura, 142.2 million. Also highlight Castilla-La Mancha (73.6 million), Asturias (72.7 million), Valencian Community (71.3 million), Galicia (71.1 million), Canary Islands (58.4), Catalunya (48.7 million) and Balearic Islands (38.8 million). To Aragon, community of Madrid and Castilla y León, another 19.6 million are allocated.
As explained ecological transition, it is an exceptional modification under the protection of Royal Decree-Law 7/2025, of June 24. It is the first time that specific modifications are approved that focus exclusively on strengthening the operation and control of the network. The Executive is pending to consult the next 2025-2030 planning.
The modification also includes a flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) that contributes to cushion oscillations in the system, as well as the renewal and installation of new reactances that allow improving voltage control distributed throughout the system.
“Given the urgent character” of the approved actions, the Investment list has not undergone the Autonomous Communities or the Report of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC). Although the actions will be undertaken “for the most part” on land already transformed by existing substations, some environmental requirements are flexible.
With this list of urgent actions ecological transition, it also seeks to reduce the need for Red Electric to apply technical restrictions when managing the electrical system, with an estimated savings of about 200 million euros per year. It is the mode of reinforced operation in which the system is working from the blackout, pulling more of the gas.
Ministry sources explain that approved actions reduce the need to connect generation plants that have not been married to the market in the mechanism called technical restrictions. This mechanism involves the start of centrals to its “technical minimum” at a time when its energy is not necessary but another element such as voltage control. This displaces other cheaper generation sources that would have married in the market, in addition to an extra cost for consumers.
“These new equipment, by providing voltage control capabilities directly from the network, will reduce the need for this type of mechanisms, generating economic savings, as well as facilitating the integration of renewable generation by not having to program the energy from these plants operating to the technical minimum,” explains the ministry.
With this new punctual planning modification, which is added to the 73 actions approved in April 2024 (with an investment then of 489 million), the total planning investment until 2026 increases to 8,203 million.
These urgent investments arrive after the decree of the Government with the lessons learned after the blackout and the approval, by the CNMC, of the new voltage control service, which the so -called ‘super -regulator’ had been analyzing since 2021 to update an obsolete rule that is 25 years old, when the renewables were testimonial in the Spanish electric mix. Competition announced the update of that service after the Government and Red Eléctrica published their reports on the blackout, which recommended to implement it immediately. The CNMC will also publish its own report on the energy zero, without prejudice to the sanctions that correspond in its case.
Source: www.eldiario.es
