The president of the Group until now known as Red Eléctrica wanted this Tuesday to clear up all doubts regarding the capacity of the Spanish network to guarantee supply before the arrival of summer and the rise in energy consumption due to the use of air conditioners. “Spain will not suffer power outages neither in summer nor next winter, because it has a much more varied diversification of energy supply sources than other European countries.”
Beatriz Corredor made these statements during a press conference with journalists held after the Shareholders’ Meeting in which she announced the change in the name of Red Eléctrica, which is now called Redeia, and its ticker on the stock market changes from REE to RED .
The name change responds to the need to unify the group concept under the same name, but does not imply any shareholder or structural change. All Red Eléctrica, Reintel, Hispasat, Redinter, the new brand of our international subsidiary, and Elewit will continue to operate under the new name.
During her speech Beatriz Corredor took the opportunity to review the main challenges of the Spanish electricity sector, which according to the directive has a priority focus and is to increase interconnections with the rest of the European Union. “If until now that was a demand from Spain to Europe, now it is Europe that is interested in having more connection with Spain given the strategic nature that this country has acquired thanks to its great diversification of energy suppliers”, assured Corredor.
For this reason, it trusts all the projects underway to promote these interconnections “accelerate”. Despite this, he has recognized that this process is going to take some time, and that the connection volume of 10% that was set for 2020 cannot be expected to be achieved before 2030. And this is taking into account that the three projects for get it are already underway. The most advanced is the submarine cable that will connect the Bay of Biscay with France and will allow an 8,000 megawatt interconnection. The new connections through Navarra and Aragón have also started, but the start-up process will still take longer.
In any case, Beatriz Corredor wanted to recall that Spain already demonstrated in July of last year its capacity for self-sufficiency to guarantee supply. “On July 24, 2021, a problem in France caused Spain to remain disconnected from the European network and in less than two hours the supply cut was resolved, demonstrating the strength of the Spanish network”, she recalled.
This is possible because Spain has an installed capacity of gigawatts, with a very varied energy mix that makes it dependent on any type of energy in particular, not even gas. So even in the event of a gas cut, the supply would be guaranteed since, according to Corredor, the demand peaks registered so far have not risen above 45 gigawatts.
“It is not worth the Spaniards worrying about the electricity supply, there are other more important things,” said the former Minister of Housing. Among them, the price of that energy to which she assured that the Redeia tolls are not expected to change and that in no case are they to blame for the rise since they barely account for 4% of the electricity bill.
