The Spanish government has announced plans to invest €13.59 billion ($15.9bn) to reinforce the country’s electricity transmission networks between now and 2030.

The proposal, presented by the vice-president of the government and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, responds to the growing saturation of the electricity grid.

According to official data published on September 9 by the Association of Electric Power Companies (Aelec) and UFD (Naturgy), 83.4 percent of the country’s electricity distribution network nodes are already saturated, which prevents new requests for access to the network from being met.

Through the announced investment, the government aims to increase access capacity in the high-voltage grid from 2GW to 7.7GW, increasing the connection possibilities for new consumers fourteen-fold.

In addition, the funding will help meet new demands: 3.8GW will go to data centers, 9GW to industrial projects, 13.1GW to green hydrogen production, 1.8GW to residential developments, 1.2GW to port electrification, and 560MW to rail electrification.

It will also contemplate 422 new connections, including for special agents such as ports and ADIF.

The government said the investment is essential to sustain Spain’s electricity competitiveness, facilitate the energy transition, and meet the objectives of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec) 2023-2030.

The proposal will soon go through a public hearing period.

This article was automatically translated from DCD’s Spanish site and edited by a member of DCD’s editorial staff.