“Collectively, these measures involve an investment of around 400 million euros, not all of which will affect the tariff, some will come from European funds,” stated the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, at a press conference at the ministry in Lisbon, marking three months since the power outage that affected Portugal and Spain on April 28.
The minister assured that these 31 measures, some already implemented, will have a minimal impact on the tariff, estimating that for every 25 euros of the electricity bill, there will be an increase of one cent, or 0.04%.
Included in the measures is the streamlining of a 137 million euro investment to reinforce the operation and control capacity of the electric grid, already planned by REN – National Energy Networks and approved by the Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE), through the approval of an autonomous authorization to be executed “as quickly as possible.”
Additionally, the plan includes launching an auction for storage batteries by 2026, along with 25 million euros in support to enhance the response capacity of critical infrastructures, such as hospitals, equipping them, for example, with photovoltaic panels and batteries.
“Of course, we could increase the measures we’re taking here, but it would cost more, it’s always a balance we make, […] we believe these are sufficient measures to enhance the operational security of the network without significant impact on Portuguese tariffs,” the minister emphasized.
At the end of June, the Minister of Environment and Energy announced plans to present a set of measures in response to the April blackout, even though the final report on the causes of the event was not yet available.
At that time, Maria da Graça Carvalho indicated that the Government intends to increase electricity storage capacity, working on a “national storage plan,” which could include chemical storage through batteries and hydro storage through dam capacity.
Another measure to be introduced involves changes to the electric grid control systems, with greater digitization and data usage, creating “a unique data collection system.”
Earlier this week, the conclusions from the July 15 meeting of the expert group from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), investigating the network’s collapse, indicated that the most probable cause was a cascading voltage increase observed in southern Spain in the incident’s final phase, followed by sudden production shutdowns, mainly in renewable installations, leading to the electrical separation of the Iberian Peninsula from the continental system, with a loss of synchronism and collapse of frequency and voltage.
This type of disturbance had never been identified as a cause of a blackout in any part of the European grid before.
During the incident, automatic response plans were activated in Portugal and Spain, as stipulated by European regulations, but they failed to prevent the network’s collapse.
Although the legal deadline to produce the factual report on the incident is October 28, 2025, six months after the incident, the expert panel intends to submit it earlier.
This will be followed by a final report, with recommendations to the European Commission and Member States, expected to be delivered two to three months later.
