Andalucía needs 77% more investment in electricity grid to prevent economic development slowdown
A recent report from the Junta has highlighted the insufficient actions planned by central government to improve and expand the network until 2030
The Andalucía region of southern Spain is facing a bottleneck in its current electricity distribution system, which threatens to slow economic growth by limiting its ability to meet both current and future demand from new industrial and business projects.
This is clearly reflected in the latest report drawn up by the Junta's regional ministry of industry, energy and mines, which assesses the central government's proposal for national investment in the electricity grid for the 2025-2030 period.
The report points out that the region requires 77% more investment to meet its present and future electricity demand. Currently, only 23% of the actions requested by the Andalusian regional government in this area of energy have been included in the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge plans.
According to the Junta, 60% of the investments allocated to Andalucía would only solve the current shortcomings of the electricity system. The planned measures, therefore, do not respond to the specific needs of Andalucía, nor do they serve the industrial development of the region, but merely support the operation of the transport network as a whole.
Of the 8.13 billion euros earmarked for Spain as a whole in the electricity planning until 2030, not including interconnections, the ministry allocates 11.8% to Andalucía, which is below what would correspond to the region according to objective criteria such as population (18%), surface area (17.3%) and electricity consumption (15%).
The Junta's report shows that the central government is only allocating 458 million to undertake new investments or actions, as the rest, more than 500 million, is for actions already included in the current planning, meaning that 52% of these investments are still pending in the current planning.
Furthermore, of the 111 facilities requested by the Andalusian government in March 2024, the central government has only included 25.
The most critical project that the central government has left out of the planning is the 400 kV Cordoba-Extremadura axis (Maguilla-Peñarroya-Lancha) - an essential infrastructure for the development of the north of the province of Cordoba and its districts of Valle del Guadiato and Valle de los Pedroches, which have historically been left out of investments in electricity networks.
Furthermore, the report points out that the most notable shortcomings are concentrated in the provinces of Cordoba, Cadiz and Malaga, where, as a whole, barely 10% of the requests are attended to.
The national government defended its investment proposal through secretary of state for energy Joan Groizard, who stated that "Andalucía is the big winner of the new proposals, as it is the region where most demand capacity is met, with 5,000 new megawatts, which means that almost 20% of all that is approved at national level goes to Andalucía, being the second region with the most significant investment effort".
Groizard also highlighted that "investment has increased by almost 90% compared to the 2015-2020 planning, given that Andalucía is the home of renewable projects, which attract industry".
