LISBON (Reuters) – Portuguese grid operator REN will allow utilities to resume imports of electricity from Spain, but the transmission capacity will be limited to around one-third of the levels seen before the huge power blackout in the two countries on April 28.
Spain suffered a catastrophic outage in its electricity grid on that day, which also left Portugal, which was importing cheaper renewable energy from its neighbour, without power. The causes of the incident are still being investigated.
In a message on its energy markets information system portal, REN said on Wednesday “the interconnection capacity between Portugal and Spain will be limited, in the importing direction, to 1 gigawatt (GW), in the May 8-12 period”.
Immediately before the power outage in Iberia, Portuguese power companies were importing around 2.76 GW from Spain, according to REN’s Data Hub portal.
After restoring its power supply, Portugal has been serving clients from its own sources, including renewables, gas and hydropower, shunning any power exchanges with Spain.
Authorities and independent experts in Portugal, Spain and Europe are investigating the causes of the outage that could take months to determine, according to Portugal’s Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho.
(Reporting Sergio Goncalves; editing by Andrei Khalip, Kirsten Donovan)
