“The nuclear power of France, which does not need competition [da electricidade ibérica]”, fought at the European level, otherwise there will be no single energy market and the Iberian Peninsula will “always be an energy island”, the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, emphasized this Wednesday in Assembly. of the Republic.
Regarding the recent agreement between Portugal and Spain to develop a joint effort to put electric interconnections between the Iberian Peninsula and France on the European agenda, the Minister says that both countries expect help from Germany, from Belgium and Luxembourg so that this issue can be resolved. be seen exclusively as a question between Iberia and France.
Although “the very strong resistance from France” makes everything more complicated, Graça Carvalho says that the Iberian partners will stand on the issue. “At the European Council, France wanted to end everything that had to do with interconnections destroy [apagar, em inglês] in everything it was a war, but we will not succeed”, explained the Minister of the Environment.
On paper, the European targets for electrical interconnections (ie the ability of a State to transfer energy to its neighbors based on installed production capacity) are 15% by 2030.
However, in practice, between the Iberian Peninsula and France, this value is around 3%, although continuous reinforcement projects are underway, such as the submarine cable across the Bay of Biscay to connect the Basque Country of Spain with Aquitaine region of France.
Between Portugal and Spain, it is also planned to reinforce the interconnection capacity between Minho and Galicia.
Meetings between Graça Carvalho and her Spanish colleague Teresa Ribera (who is seen as one of the candidates for the Energy portfolio at the European Commission) in recent months have discussed the urgency of accelerating the fulfillment of these goals and giving a European character to the matter, given that interconnections are considered necessary to guarantee the security of European supply, and that more electricity will reach central European countries if necessary (with more competition in terms of price).
Another thing, the minister accepted, is the investment in the hydrogen transport pipeline announced in 2022, as part of the European strategy to reduce dependence on Russian gas.
The plan was to build a third gas interconnection with Spain (the CelZa project, between Celorico da Beira and Zamora), which would then connect to the Spanish network and, from there, to the French network.
It is technologically difficult to transport hydrogen “as well as being expensive”. Portugal will continue to monitor the issue of the gas pipeline, but it will not “start the works”, unless the work between Barcelona and Marseille (for the connection called BarMar) begins, Graça Carvalho highlighted.
“Hydrogen is interesting to attract investment to Portugal and that is what we are working on”, because this energy vector must be used closer to the places where it is produced, the minister emphasized.