The combination of climate change and the energy crisis aggravated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine have accelerated the transition process towards more environmentally friendly energy sources, also achieving a reduction in energy dependence on Russia, an issue of the utmost importance for EU countries.
Iberian Plan. This situation revalued the Iberian Peninsula due to the presence of its seven operational regasification plants -six in Spain, one in Portugal- and the fact that it possesses 40% of the European storage capacity for this hydrocarbon.
The advancement of Portuguese renewable energy. At the same time, Spain and Portugal were in the top 20 countries with the most effective energy transition policies between 2012 and 2021, according to the ‘Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2021’ report prepared by the World Economic Forum. In fact, although both countries attach paramount importance to this energy transformation, Portugal is ahead in some aspects: in 2021 it was the eleventh European country that obtained the most energy from renewable sources (34%), while Spain was in the twentieth first place (21%), below the European average (22%).
Very positive data. Regarding the production of renewable energy in Portugal, at the beginning of April data from ADENE – Agência para Energia was made public, indicating that in the first quarter of this year, 72% of Portuguese energy consumption came from renewable energy . Specifically, 34% came from water production; 27.3% from wind power; 27.3% biomass and 5.1% photovoltaic systems.
In fact, last January renewable energies accounted for 85% of all Portuguese energy production, a percentage that reached 97% during the first two weeks of the year.
60,000 million euros ‘renewable’. These data show the commitment of the Portuguese government to decarbonise the energy sector and, by extension, the country. In this sense, Duarte Cordeiro, Minister of Environment and Climate Action, announced on March 8 the plan to invest 60,000 million euros in the Portuguese energy sector until 2030.
By land, sea and air. Cordeiro, who assured that the economic estimate of this plan was “conservative”, explained some details of this plan before the Portuguese Parliament. Thus, the minister pointed out that of those 60,000 million euros, between 3,000 and 3,500 million will go to land wind energy; between 4,300 and 4,700 million will go to solar energy installations; between 30,000 and 40,000 million will go to the construction of 10GW facilities for wind power plants located in the sea and 430 million euros to improve the electricity transmission network.
Investment in green hydrogen. In addition, the minister assured that between 7,000 and 9,000 million euros will be allocated to projects related to the production and distribution of green hydrogen, a matter of vital importance for the interests of the two Iberian countries, which want to turn the peninsula into the ‘hub ‘ European of this energy vector.
Destination Europe. That is the objective of the H2Med project, an energy interconnection that will unite Portugal, Spain and France and that will be able to transport green hydrogen and gas to those countries and, eventually, the rest of the European continent. Germany has already shown its interest in this project that would accelerate the reduction of Germany’s dependence on Russian energy.
CelZa and BarMar. This project includes the construction of two hybrid pipelines -gas pipeline and hydroduct- in the Iberian Peninsula. One, called CelZa, will connect the Portuguese town of Celorico da Beira with Zamora and the other, called BarMar, will connect Barcelona with Marseille. In this way, the gas from regasification plants such as Sines, south of Lisbon, will be released, in whose port, a green hydrogen production plant is also being built at a cost of 3,000 million euros.
Ecological scrutiny. However, this entire plan is closely watched by the environmental movement. In this sense, the Portuguese environmental association ZERO rejected last March three of the four plans presented by the Portuguese government for the H2Med project.
Pressures from the gas sector. For their part, Greenpeace and the Renewables Foundation published a report that same month in which they ensured that this project diverts resources from the efficient development of renewable energies, “responding more to the demand of the gas sector than to the real interests of society”. .
Concern in Brussels. In short, climate change is one of the biggest concerns in the Old Continent and the recent warnings from the EU to the Junta de Andalucía for its plan for Doñana give a good account of this.
A hot topic. In this context, Spain and Portugal have decided to strengthen their strategies to accelerate the energy transition under the watchful eye of environmental movements. And all of this comes months before what may be one of the hottest summers on record.
Image: Nuno Marques/Unsplash
In Xataka | Whatever happens this year, Spain has secured its energy shield until December: the gas cap
