The massive blackouts across Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France last week are likely to become a “turning point” for energy policy across Europe as governments wake up to an “urgent need” to upgrade grids to account for the growing role of renewables in their power supply mix, analysts said.
And that could present opportunities for Chinese companies involved in the European energy infrastructure market, they added.
Though the exact causes of the blackouts have yet to be determined, experts have stressed that the crisis highlighted the brittleness of Iberia’s power grids in an era when power supplies are increasingly provided by solar and wind energy.
“Right now, we don’t know the causes,” said Ismael Morales, climate policy manager at the Spain-based think tank Fundación Renovables. “What we know is we have lessons to learn for the future.”
“We will need all the Chinese technologies to improve the grid,” he added. “I think right now what we really need from Chinese brands … is storage. We need to improve our storage capacity in Spain.”
