Iberia's one wire to Europe

Spain and Portugal share a synchronous grid that meets the rest of Europe in one place: the Pyrenees. The atlas records a single operating cross-border pathway from Spain into France, rated 2,800 MW, against 2,700 MW west into Portugal and 1,400 MW south to Morocco. For a peninsula of nearly 60 million people, that is a narrow door — and the April 2025 blackout that took down both national grids was a reminder of how little help can arrive through it.

Turn on interconnectors with transmission and grid storage, operating and proposed chips both on, and the asymmetry reads off the map: three proposed Spain-France pathways carrying 5,200 MW between them, none built, alongside 36 operating pumped-storage sites totalling 9.9 GW. Storage of that kind moves Iberian power in time. It does not move it across a border.

The European Investment Bank lent 1.6 billion euros in 2025 to the Bay of Biscay submarine link, the project meant to take Spain's exchange capacity with the rest of Europe towards 5,000 MW later this decade. On the map it is one dashed schematic line. Until it lands, the flexibility Iberia actually has is the 9.9 GW inside the peninsula.

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