‘Portugal is an energy island and needs more flexibility’ – minister

Portugal has intensified pressure on France and the European Union to accelerate long-delayed electricity interconnections, with a top minister arguing that the Iberian Peninsula remains an “energy island” despite leading Europe in renewable energy deployment.

“From the point of view of electricity and energy in general, we are an island,” Portuguese Energy Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho told reporters on 6 July. “And that’s more difficult to manage. We need more flexibility, more storage and much greater grid resilience than if we were fully integrated.”

Carvalho’s remarks came on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting in Paris to discuss power grid developments alongside her Spanish and French counterparts Sarah Aagesen and Maud Bregeon. Also in attendance was energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen.

A former member of the European Parliament, the Portuguese minister framed the issue as no longer merely an infrastructure project but one of European energy security, competitiveness and resilience. She recalled the April 2025 blackout that threw the Iberian Peninsula into darkness, which has become a key part of the political argument for accelerating European grid integration.

For the Commission, revamping Europe’s grids is fundamental to the bloc’s goal of accelerating electrification and reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels, with a looming target to electrify the bloc’s economy on 17 July.

Carvalho said Portugal has been managing its national electricity system with all the challenges of an island nation and that the European Commission needs to pay “special attention to the financing of energy storage” for countries in its situation.

“We need more storage capacity and flexibility to strengthen our electricity grid,” Carvalho said. “We also hope that the Commission, as it has done for other island nations in Europe with derogations and special funding for certain situations, will pay attention to Portugal and, naturally, to Spain.”

Carvalho noted that Portugal has fulfilled its obligations by leading in clean electricity and has reached the EU’s 2030 electricity interconnection target of 15 percent, with Spain already ahead of schedule.

While Spain did not use the meeting to specifically demand official “outermost region” status, it asked the Commission for “greater ambition in European funding for these projects”, according to sources at the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition.

“The three countries (Portugal, Spain and France) and the Commission have agreed to hold a new technical meeting of the high-level group during September to make progress on the technical aspects of the trans-Pyrenean electricity interconnections,” the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition said.

Commissioner Jørgensen, meanwhile, stressed the need to move forward with two planned electricity interconnections across the Pyrenees to better integrate the Iberian Peninsula into Europe’s system, a plan that involves delicate political navigation between France, a net electricity exporter, and the Iberian Peninsula’s historical isolation.

“The European Commission is doing its utmost to support the member states and enable the implementation of such projects, and we remain committed to providing all the necessary support going forward,” Jørgensen said, noting that €11 million in EU funding has been earmarked for one of the interconnectors linking Spain and France.

‘It is not impossible’

However, the bottleneck between France and Spain remains a headache for the Commission, which identified itas a strategic target for speeding up interconnections across the bloc when it unveiled its so-called Grids Package legislation to revamp the bloc’s power grid by 2040 with an estimated cost of a mammoth €1.2 trillion.

Included in that strategy are two proposed electricity interconnections across the Pyrenees, which separate France and Spain, to better integrate the Iberian Peninsula into the European grid.

“It is an expensive connection, and it has some environmental impacts, but it is not impossible,” Carvalho said, acknowledging the costs France would need to accept for the sake of the bloc’s climate ambitions.

While France is not fully opposed, it has been reluctant to build as many new cross-border links as Spain, Portugal and the Commission have wanted.

France has traditionally been a net exporter of electricity because of its large nuclear fleet. Greater interconnection would increase market integration, which can alter electricity flows and prices, meaning that during periods of abundant Spanish solar or wind generation, electricity could flow north into France, affecting French generators’ market position.

At a ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on 26 June, the European Parliament and the EU Council agreed on a political compromise on the Grids Package. Maud Bregeon, French government spokesperson and minister delegate for energy, said after the meetingthat Paris had “demands”, but stressed the importance of “a European approach” to the development of the power network.

“We are just in an uncertain position,” she said. “There are still several months of discussion, of negotiations, of exchanges during which we will obviously be fully involved. So, once again, we are approaching these negotiations with requirements that we consider legitimate.”