Portuguese grid operator targets EUR900m financial investment to allow renewables transition

• Portuguese grid driver Redes Energéticas Nacionais has said it will spend more than EUR900 million (US$ 1.1 billion) by 2024 in technologies as well as renovations to the electrical power network to support the nation's environment-friendly power transition.

President Rodrigo Costa said on Friday (14 May) that REN will certainly increase its ordinary yearly CAPEX by 45% contrasted to what it was investing in between 2018 and also 2020 on linking brand-new renewable energy projects to the grid, improving the existing network's durability, and bringing green hydrogen projects into the country's power mix by 2024. Around 10% of the funding will certainly be spent on efforts to digitise grid operations, according to a declaration, while the substantial bulk (70-75%) would certainly go in the direction of grid expansion to accommodate brand-new sustainable power projects.

The company introduced its 2021-2024 Strategic Plan today, which comprehensive plans to minimize its greenhouse gas discharges by 50% over the following nine years, compared with 2019 levels, and get to carbon nonpartisanship by 2040.

In its presentation, REN claimed it would certainly invest between EUR200 million as well as EUR235 million each year on capital expense, up from approximately EUR175 million previously.

The business also said it expects its EBITDA will be somewhere between EUR450 million and EUR470 million from 2021 to 2024, compared to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR463 million last year.

As Europe's renewables capability has expanded significantly, electricity grids have struggled to stay on top of the shift. Takis Sarris, the handling director of German EPC juwi's Greek subsidiary, informed PV Technology that there are currently projects in the variety of 20-- 100MW that "can not go into" the country's upcoming ability public auctions "just because the IPTO can not issue the grid connection terms". In the US, the Department of Energy (DOE) lately announced it would certainly give out US$ 8.25 billion in loans to sustain grid transmission renovations as the Biden management targets a decarbonised power grid by 2035.