cables

the power is ready, but the cables do not reach

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While the country breaks renewable generation recordsits nervous system – the transportation network – suffers an administrative thrombosis that threatens to stop reindustrialization and access to housing in its tracks. The diagnosis we’ve been counting for days: We have the power, but we have nowhere to plug it in. The problem is more about papers than cables. The main person accused in this crisis, Red Eléctrica (REE), has decided to break its technical silence to point directly at the bureaucracy. As explained by the CEO of Redeia (REE parent company)Roberto García Merino, the company does not suffer financial or supply restrictions; The problem is that “he does not have permission to invest more.” The gap between administrative times and physical execution is abysmal. As detailed by El Economistawhile building a substation barely requires one year of work, its prior processing can take between three and six years. In the case of long-distance lines, the scenario is even more bleak: six to twelve years of “paperwork” for only two years of actual construction. The “waiting room” in data. This paralysis has left a worrying x-ray: 130 GW of renewable generation have access permissionbut they wait for the infrastructure to expand so they can pour their energy. It is a figure equivalent to the entire current generation fleet. 20 GW of industrial demand and data centers await a connection that does not arrive. REE’s investment in 2024 reached a record of 1.5 billion euros, but the company insists that every project with construction permit is already underway. A collapse that extinguishes brick and industry. The situation is not just an office debate; It has direct consequences on the street. The Spanish electrical system has suffered an administrative “heart attack”. As we have explained in Xatakathe CNMC has been forced to postpone the publication of the capacity maps for three months (from February 2 to May 4, 2026) due to fear that 90% of the network nodes would appear “red”, blocking everything from factories to 350,000 new homes that, according to the Asprima employer’s association, are at risk due to lack of power. Given this, García Merino calls for shock measures: the application of “positive silences” or “responsible declarations” that allow work to begin while the bureaucracy continues its course, a strategy that is already beginning to sound loudly in Brussels. The Pyrenean wall. As the internal grid collapses, Spain produces so much cheap energy that it is forced to throw it away (curtailment). The Peninsula registers a surplus of renewables that plummets prices to levels close to zero or even negative. However, this wealth cannot be exported towards the rest of Europe. The culprit, according to various analysts and the CEO of Redeia himselfit’s France. The neighboring country acts as a “buffer” to protect its nuclear industry, preventing Spanish solar and wind energy—much more competitive—from sinking its prices. With barely 2.8% interconnection, Spain continues to be an energy island that wastes its green potential. The price of modernization Spain’s electrical future not only depends on volts, but on politics and bills. To finance this “reinforced mode” of operation and unlock investments, it is expected that in 2026 citizens will assume an increase in tolls and charges on their bills. As industry sources conclude“the plans are very nice, but they have to be built.” Spain has everything to be the battery of Europe, but as long as the processing of a cable lasts a decade, that potential will continue to be trapped in an endless bureaucratic waiting room. Image | freepik Xataka | The great electrical jam in Spain: we have plenty of electricity, but there are no cables to build houses and invest more

We have plenty of electricity, but we lack cables to build houses and invest more

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Over the last decade, Spain has accelerated the installation of wind and solar farms, especially in “emptied Spain”, with the promise of becoming Europe’s green laboratory. However, upon reaching 2026, the system has hit an invisible but insurmountable wall: the cables. The reason is a “broken bridge”, since clean energy is born in the countryside, but does not reach the cities or factories because the transportation infrastructure does not exist or is saturated. The situation is critical. According to advance The Economistthe Spanish electricity grid has administratively “collapsed” and, for practical purposes, is closed to new projects. There is no longer room to accommodate new connection requests, which means that thousands of homes, data centers and industries are receiving a “no” answer when asking for a plug. Red Eléctrica’s technical documentation confirms this paralysis with endless lists of nodes submitted to a capacity contest, from Algeciras to Arrigorriaga, evidencing a blockade that runs through the entire peninsula. The “D-Day” that never came. The trigger for this crisis has a date and time. The electricity sector was anxiously awaiting February 2, 2026, the day on which the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) was to publish the new access capacity maps, the “traffic light” that indicates where there is more consumption. But the maps did not arrive. In a last-minute maneuver, the CNMC has postponed the publication until Monday, May 4, 2026. The decision responds to a critical alert launched by the system operator (REE) on January 26: under the new and strict technical criteria, “approximately 90% of the nodes in the transportation network would have zero access capacity.” The problem is deeper. On the one hand, the application of the “dynamic criterion” has revealed that more than 9 GW of already authorized demand—mainly data centers and electrolyzers—might not be sufficiently robust against “voltage dips” (sudden drops in voltage), which forces the tap to be turned off for safety. On the other hand, consensus is non-existent: Red Eléctrica and the distributors they have only achieved agree on the reference values ​​in 26% of the interconnection nodes, a figure that in the case of some distributors plummets to just 11%. A traffic jam with real consequences. Far from being a mere dispatch procedure, it has devastating consequences for the real economy. The energy plug has become the new brake on brick: Last year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. The Asprima employers’ association estimates that some 350,000 homes are at risk of not being able to be built, not due to lack of land or money, but due to the simple lack of electrical power. The impact has specific faces. An example that they expose in The Economist is that of the Costa del Sol, where the delay in the construction of a substation in Estepona and its associated line keeps the quality of supply and the connection capacity of a total of 72 families in suspense. The investment war. There is a chronic lack of investment in basic infrastructure. While Europe invests on average 70 cents in networks for every euro of renewable generation, Spain remains at just 30 cents. This has unleashed an open war. The large electricity companies (Aelec) accuse Red Eléctrica (Redeia) of having invested below what was planned, causing the current precariousness. Redeia defends himself forcefullyensuring that it has quadrupled its investment to exceed 1.5 billion in 2025. In addition, the system operator uses devastating quality data to deny the poor state of the network: the average annual interruption time is just 0.46 minutes, a value 30 times better than the 15 minutes required by regulations. The speculative bubble. Amidst the chaos, speculation flourishes. The CNMC is finalizing a complete report—a kind of “forensic” audit—to put order in the system. According to Expansionthere are access requests for 67,100 MW, an exorbitant figure that is equivalent to half of all the installed power in the country. The regulator suspects that there are massive duplications and “ghost” projects that hoard nodes for the sole purpose of reselling permits, blocking access to real industries. Three months of heart attack. Given the seriousness of the scenario, the sector now faces a three-month truce, until May, to try to avoid the total closure of the network. Express legal route. The recent Sustainable Mobility Law has introduced an “emergency mechanism” which allows changing the purpose of positions in substations. That is, unlock spaces reserved for generation that are not used and assign them to consumption quickly. “Amnesty” for Data Centers. To prevent the flight of digital investment, the Government has activated a grace measure for 2026: has eliminated the requirement that forced data centers to consume in “off-peak hours” (at night) to receive aid, recognizing that solar energy has changed the reality of prices and that said requirement no longer made technical sense. Cost for the citizen: fixing the network it won’t be free. The proposal for 2026 includes an increase in tolls (4%) and charges (10.5%) in the electricity bill to finance these investments and the “reinforced mode” of operation, necessary to guarantee stability after the incidents of 2025. Crisis of institutional trust. Despite the extension, legal uncertainty is latent. Electricity companies fear that industries that already had access granted they can lose it when applying the new, more restrictive criteria. Óscar Mosquera, sector expert, warns on LinkedIn about a “regulatory breakdown.” “The network is no longer just infrastructure, it is an institution,” says Mosquera. His diagnosis is lapidary: “A system that invites investment and then does not connect is not prudent, it is incoherent. That is the true country risk.” While the administration looks for solutions, real demand does not wait for the bureaucracy. Joaquin Coronado highlights that the electricity demand It has grown by 3.7% at the start of January 2026, exceeding the official forecasts of the CNMC itself. The Spanish economy tries to accelerate, but physical reality prevents it. A country disconnected from its own future. Spain finds itself at an ironic and … Read more

swapping hordes of tourists for undersea cables

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If the capitals of the countries are the cornerstone on which their economies revolve, in Portugal there is not much debate, although there is a certain amount of boredom. Years ago, Lisbon set out to be a tourist capital, and this summer it has been confirmed that it has become the biggest tourist hell of Europe with the price of housing shot while the urban center lost a good part of its population. But Portugal has a simple but difficult plan to execute: exchange submarine cables for tourists. The new horizon. Sinesa seemingly modest coastal municipality, is once again at the center of Portugal’s strategic ambitions. After decades in which tourism became the country’s main economic engine (representing almost a quarter of GDP) the Portuguese government is now seeking to rebalance its production model attracted by an opportunity that mixes geography and technology. As? Sines is the point where they land and take off submarine cables that connect Europe with America and Africaand that will soon also link with the United States through of one line from Google to South Carolina. Portugal as a data center. This combination of global connectivity, available space and energy infrastructure has promoted the development of projects such as a mega data center 8.5 billion eurosa battery factory of 2,000 million and the expansion of the deep-sea port managed by the Port Authority of Singapore, investments equivalent to 4.6% of GDP of the country that could generate more than 5,000 jobs. For Lisbon, Sines is not an experiment, but the link that could transform the Portuguese economy into an Atlantic logistics and technological platform. The Google cable that will connect the US with Portugal and the rest of Europe Ambitions interrupted. However, the municipality carries a legacy of promises that were not kept. In the 70s, the authoritarian regime tried to convert it in the industrial hub of the country, building a commercial port, a refinery and an energy plant with the expectation of processing fuels from the Portuguese colonial empire. After the Revolution of 1974 and the loss of the colonies, the project deflated: the port was underutilized, the refinery survived with difficulty and the power plant ended closing in 2021 due to the cheaper renewable energy. The region grew up expecting a boom that never materialized and many of the newcomers ended up leaving. That memory weighs heavily today on the minds of its inhabitants, who observe this new wave of investments with a mixture of excitement and caution. Pressure. Bloomberg counted that the arrival of thousands of workers linked to the construction of new data centers, factories and port expansions is straining the urban fabric of a city that remains small and with limited services. The housing supply is insufficient, some workers sleep in cars and residential projects are advancing slowly due to lack of financing. Basic services (schools, health centers, municipal infrastructure) show signs of saturation. This mismatch between investment and life support fuels the fundamental doubt: whether Sines This time it will be a city that retains wealth or if, as in the past, the activity will arrive, the works will be completed and the value generated will once again go to other regions and companies. Start Sines Campus Logistics hub. As we said, the port of sines occupies a strategic position between Europe, Africa and America, and its expansion seeks to go from being a transshipment point between ships to becoming a port that introduces goods towards the interior of the peninsula. But this transition requires rapid connections with Spain and central Europe, and the road corridor to the border It is incomplete and does not exist a passenger rail connection, while freight transport is slow. Solution? The government is studying improvements that would cut up to three hours logistics routes to Spain, which would allow it to compete with ports such as Valencia or Algeciras. Transport infrastructure is therefore the real turning point: without it, Sines will remain a peripheral port, but with it, it could become one of the central pieces of European Atlantic trade. Technology, energy and capital. The new projects in Sines are marked by international investment. The data center Start Campus operates with renewable energy and has secured 1.2 gigawatts (a capacity comparable to Lisbon’s consumption) by reusing cooling systems from the old thermal power plant using seawater. The CALB battery plant, partially controlled by Chinese capital, will receive up to 350 million euros in public support and aims to produce batteries for 200,000 electric vehicles per year by 2028. The combination of available clean energy, seawater for cooling, physical space and direct access to submarine cables makes Sines a privileged node in a world where digital infrastructure weighs as much as industrial infrastructure. The great opportunity. For many inhabitants, this transformation may be the opportunity that never camebut for others, it is a new cycle in which large companies will take center stage and the local community will be left out. The difference between one result and another will depend on three levers: accessible housing, infrastructure that connects Sines with the rest of the country and the State’s ability to capture and redistribute the value generated. Thus, what is at stake is not only the future of a coastal citybut the Portuguese economic model as a whole: if the municipality goes from being a tourist landscape and a transit port to becoming a European technological and logistical node, the country could leave behind decades of dependence on tourism as an economic monoculture On the other hand, if he doesn’t, Sines will once again be a symbol of unfulfilled promises. Image | Kalboz, MaritimeGoogle In Xataka | Years ago, Lisbon set out to be a tourist capital. Now it has become the biggest tourist hell in Europe In Xataka | If the question is “can a country sustain itself with renewable energy alone”, the answer is right here: Portugal

The submarine cables were from the teleoperators, and now the great technological ones are controlling them

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Submarine cables They transport 95% of data traffic between continents. They hold Ten billion dollars daily in financial transactions, according to figures collected by Telegeographyand feed from streaming to artificial intelligence networks. And yet, its control no longer belongs to the great traditional teleoperators: it has largely passed to technological giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon. A deep transformation that raises questions about dependence, digital sovereignty and resilience to geopolitical risks. For more than a century, the submarine cables were a matter of consortiums of public operators and large telecos. Installing them cost hundreds of millions of dollars, And it was common to distribute the risk among several actors in exchange for assigning fiber pairs to each participant. Recent examples, as the 2Africa cable, promoted by goalThey follow this model. However, in just a decade, this balance has jumped through the air. Today, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon They control or manage approximately half of the world underwater bandwidth. Between 2019 and 2023, They financed about 25% of activated cable systems, according to Carnegie Endowment. Globally, The construction of about 60 new submarine cables until 2027 is expected, as indicated by the latest telegeography mapwhich gives an idea of ​​the magnitude of the change of cycle in the control of critical internet infrastructure. How technology took over the underwater routes The qualitative leap is not only in participation: also in full property. Google has in full cables such as Curie (USA-Chile), Dunant (USA-France), Grace Hopper (USA-Spanish-Spanish Reino) and Equiano (Portugal-Nigeria-Sudaphrica). Goal, meanwhile, He has planned Waterworth: A cable of just over 40,000 km that will connect USA directly with important markets of the southern hemisphere, including points in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, deliberately avoiding risk areas such as the Red Sea and the Sea of ​​Southern China. The case of 2Africa, although still based on consortium, also reflects the evolution: here, goal participates significantly as a key partner of the consortium with several operators. Europe is the continent with more mooring cables on the planet, according to the Carnegie Endowment. Two thirds of its external connectivity depend on submarine cableswhich underlines your high strategic exposure. Besides, Much of the European traffic is stored in data centers located in the US, as analyzed by the ITIFincreasing its technological dependence. Faced with this panorama, Europe has some strategic assets, such as Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), World leader in kilometers of cable installed between 2020 and 2024and Orange Marine, which operates one of the largest installation and repair fleets. Paris and Rome have already launched movements to protect Asn and Sparkle as “sovereign industrial champions.” The threat to cables It is no longer just accidental. Russia has intensified its underwater patrols around strategic nodes, and in 2025 China presented a ship capable of cutting cables at 4,000 meters deep, according to the South China Morning Postincreasing its asymmetric pressure capacity on critical routes. In addition, the lack of response capacity complicates the scenario: There are barely 80 ships around the world dedicated to laying and cable repair, according to the Carnegie Endowmentand Europe lacks specialized breaking, necessary to operate in Arctic regions or in marine ice conditions, where new strategic connectivity routes are being explored. The underwater critical infrastructure also faces a fragmented legal framework. Several European countries have not even ratified the 1884 convention cablewhich hinders the Persecution of sabotage acts. Meanwhile, installation and repair permits in Europe They have doubled in duration in the last decadecomplicating the response to incidents. To correct it, the EU and the NATO have created joint initiatives, such as the Critical Unclea Infrastructure Coordination Cell and a Task Force Industrial. However, some analysts insist that Without a drastic increase in resources, Europe will remain at a disadvantage. Towards a more fragmented and dependent Internet The massive entry of great technological responds to a clear logic: Control the physical layer of the Internet allows them to reduce costsimprove efficiency and guarantee alternative routes to crises. For traditional telecos, the dilemma is clear: collaborate or be displaced. Some operators continue to play a relevant role, although adapting to an ecosystem with a strong presence of the great technological giants. In the near future, Intercontinental traffic is expected to double every two years5G driven, cloud distributed e artificial intelligence. Alternative routes are being explored, such as polar corridors, which would significantly reduce Europe-Asia latency. In parallel, fears of a physical “splinternet” grow: cable networks segmented by political alliances, with Europe discussing between its historical openness and the need to protect His strategic interests, as Oxford analysts point out. Although we usually imagine the cloud as an intangible space, the reality is that much rest on a complex physical infrastructure. And that infrastructure, more and more, is controlled by US multinationals. For Europe, the challenge is not just building more cables: it is to ensure that the next generation of the Internet does not depend mostly on foreign actors. Images | Goal | Screen capture In Xataka | Digital serendipia is in danger of extinction. Internet understands us too well

99% of the Internet travels through submarine cables. Now there is a much more ambitious plan in progress: join the electricity grid

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At first glance, the seas are an empty landscape. Under its waters, the image is another, through it a network of invisible highways that already support our day to day: the submarine cables that carry the 99% of world communications. Now, a new generation of electrical interconnectors – thousands of kilometers and gigavatio power – aspires to bring sun, wind and hydraulic where they are missing, when they are missing. The promise is simple: that electricity travels with the sun and wind through schedules; The execution, not so much. The starting point: The North Sea. The United Kingdom and Denmark premiered at the end of 2023 the Viking Link, a 765 km cable that crosses the North Sea and allows you to import electricity when wind is missing on the island and export when left over. It is the longest interconnector in the world in operation, but, as Financial Times warned: “It may not be for a long time.” The British media report details That on the horizon there are much more ambitious plans: join Canada with the United Kingdom and Ireland through a 4,000 km cable, link Morocco with Europe or export Australian solar energy to Singapore through more than 4,300 km of submarine cable. Through the cables. This new megaproject makes it clear that countries have been pursuing a connection with renewables for some time, because there is a mismatch between production and consumption, and we must solve it. The most illustrative example is AapowerLink in Australia. The Suncable company plans to install 3 GW from Solar in the northern territory, store part in batteries and sell it both to Darwin and Singapore, through an underwater cable of more than 4,000 km. In the words of his CEO, Ryan Willemsen-Bell, collected by Financial Times: “Australia has abundant land and sun. The ability to share those benefits with our neighbors has enormous potential.” In parallel, the North Atlantic Transmission One Link seeks to connect the Canadian hydroelectric plant with Europe. The time differential is its great asset: when Canada sleeps, the United Kingdom starts the day; When in the North Sea, wind blows at midnight, New York is preparing dinner. A lesson from the Internet. The idea may sound futuristic, but there are already solid precedents. As we have underlined Xatakathe entire planet is furrowed by submarine data cables, authentic digital highways that have demonstrated the viability of infrastructure of tens of thousands of kilometers. The Southern Cross Cable Network, 30,500 km, connects Australia, New Zealand and the United States since 2000. The newly opened 2Africa, 45,000 km, surrounds the African continent and reaches Barcelona and India. And in Spain, cables such as tide (6,605 km, Meta and Microsoft) or Grace Hopper (7,191 km, from Google) link Bilbao with the east coast of the US. The experience of these data networks provides an obvious parallelism: if we already move information on a global scale, why not also clean energy? Although not everything is so easy. From Financial Times alert a tensioning supply chain: The manufacture of cables, transformers and converting stations does not supply. The waiting deadlines are lengthened, and the availability of specialized ships to tend cable is limited. To that are added political risks. In Norway, the export of electricity to its neighbors has triggered the internal debate on prices. In the United Kingdom, the Government rejected this year to support the X-Links project to bring energy from Morocco, claiming “high level of inherent risk”. And with the ongoing Ukraine War, the threat of sabotages to critical infrastructure It is a fact. Looking inside. In the Spanish case, the problem is more domestic than international. As we have explained in Xatakathe country has run more than anyone to lift renewables in the “emptied Spain”, but has not deployed the cables to bring that electricity to the cities. The result is a “broken bridge”: at noon there are plenty of cheap megawatts that are cut or sell at zero price, and at night the network needs gas support, more expensive the market. According to data from the AELēC employer, 83.4% of connection knots are already saturated, which prevents hooking new consumptions such as industries, data centers or electrolyiners. The challenge, in short, is not to plan and reinforce the networks; as well as improve interdependence with other countries to break With the French bottleneck. A map of interdependencies. Beyond the technical and economic, these electric highways draw a new geopolitical map. Just as pipelines and gas pipelines marked the twentieth century, renewable interconnections can define alliances and dependencies in the XXI. The engineer Simon Ludlam, co-founder of the Canada-UK project, summed it up in Financial Times: “The most important nuclear reactor is in heaven, and its energy can be shared thanks to the rotation of the earth. But we need to be interconnected.” The sun that shines in the Australian desert or the water that falls in Canada could light, in a matter of seconds, the lights of cities to thousands of kilometers. The energy transition not only depends on producing renewables, but also on learning to move them. If the pipelines defined the petroleum geopolitics, the electric highways can become the invisible arteries of the coming world. Image | Unspash and What’s Inside Xataka | The Google Maps of submarine cables: an imposing interactive map that allows us to know the skeleton of the modern world

Emptied Spain has been filled with solar mills and panels, but waste energy for a simple reason: there are no cables

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At noon, the sun and the wind are left over in the emptied regions. At dusk, the cities turn on the gas. Spain has run more than anyone raising renewables in the unpopulated territory, but the cables that take them to the demand are not tended at the same speed. The result is a broken bridge: clean energy is born in emptied Spain and does not arrive, when it is necessary, urban Spain. Today, for the first time, the distributors have published the “Map of Plug” for new demand: the photo is stark. The expected map. By mandate of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC), the great distributors —I-de (Iberdrola), e-Distribution (Endesa), UFD (Naturgy), E-Redes (EDP) and Repsol Distribution— They have published the capacity maps To connect new firm demand to the distribution network. It is an radiography where they show, knot to knot, where there is a hole, what is busy and what is in process. According to the employer Aelēcthe first results confirm that 83.4% of knots are already saturated, which prevents connecting new consumptions such as industries, data centers, storage or electric vehicle recharge. The association itself defines it as “transparency milestone”, but warns that, under these conditions, without investment, the transition is raised. The great territorial neck. Here is the core of the problem. Spain has installed renewables where there is resource and soil: rural regions with low density and little network. However, demand grows in cities: metropolitan areas, logistics corridors, data clusters. In the middle there is an electrical system that does not endure that mismatch, since transport corridors are missing to evacuate surpluses and, above all, distribution capacity to connect the new demand where it is requested. The result is that at noon there are many cheap MWh that are cut or sold at zero price; When the sun falls, the network needs support and the gas enters, Based on pool. The double face of emptied Spain. If the anticipatory network is not remunerated and planned, there will be no industries, CPDs, or recharge of electric vehicles, or hydrogen or storage projects that create employment and set population. But if investigated without criteria, the cost will fall on rates without effective use. The key is agile planning, clear priorities and mechanisms that accelerate reinforcements where demand is plausible: poles such as Aragon, but also Extremadura, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha or inner Andalusia, where hot knots and curtailment-up to 30% renewable wasted by saturation– They are already common. The demand boom. There is a very illustrative fact: The increase in data centers. Applications to get an access point have multiplied by 80 compared to previous years, According to the Spanish. Among them are technological, great consumers and promoters of hybrids that seek to consume in situ. Aragon has become an epicenter. Only the projected data centers would add more than 2 GW of requested power, with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft or QTS/Blackstone at the head. In this new scenario, the race for a “plug” is no longer limited to first: weigh guarantees, guarantees and project criteria. “Historic traffic jam.” The “complete maps” – without significant hollows – stress even more the pulse with the CNMC. The fear of the sector is double: losing industrial and digital projects (including CPDs) for not being able to connect them and see investment relocation if the jam persists. The electricity story connects that urgency with the regulated remuneration: they argue that with a rate of 6.46% the volume of reinforcements required by the demand wave required, and remember that in other countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Sweden) the reference rates are higher; In Spain, they ask around 7.5%. For its part, the CNMC two proposals presented in July: a financial compensation rate of 6.46% by 2026-2031 (from current 5.58%) and a new distribution methodology that turns towards the Totex model (CAPEX + OPEX). This system includes incentives for efficiency and quality, and league part of the remuneration to the contracted power, to avoid overrredes that end up paying consumers. The regulator insists that the framework must encourage investment without compromising the affordability of the invoice. The forecasts. Access to the distribution network no longer depends only on the order of arrival. The processing requires guarantees, technical draft and guarantees, and a period of one month to present the documentation after reserving a point. The resolutions should be issued in less than six months, with technical support for Red Electric. In addition, scores that value CO₂, investment volume and speed at the beginning of consumption are applied. In parallel, solutions such as battery PPAS arise, which allow to finance storage and take advantage of the cheap electricity at noon at the afternoon, avoiding the resource to gas. But without broader investment limits, as Aelēc claimsthe bridge between rural Spain and urban Spain will remain broken. The PNIEC foresees more than 53,000 million in networks until 2030, although the CNMC defends to maintain the rate at 6.46% for efficiency and affordability, while the sector asks for greater certainty and return. The political context adds pressure: after the rejection of the “Decree antiaps” In July, the dilemma is sharpened. The end point. Spain does not have a sun or wind problem; It has a bridge problem between where it occurs and where it is consumed. Capacity maps have made what the industry had been suffering: the distribution network is at the limit. Without a jump in investment and planning, the transition will be stuck where there are less labor and more territory. If the network does not reach empty Spain, clean energy will not reach rich Spain. The choice is not whether to invest or not, but how, where and with what rules so that the cost does not pay it neither the countryside nor the city, but the economic future of both. Image | Freepik Xataka | The renewable boom clashes with the invisible wall: Spain has more green energy than ever but the system does not endure … Read more

Someone cut five submarine cables in the Baltic. Finland already points as responsible for a ship of the “shade fleet”

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In the middle of Christmas, five submarine cables that connect Finland and Estonia were damaged. According to the Finnish Prosecutor’s Officeit was a deliberate act: an oil tanker dragged its anchor for about 90 kilometers and cut the electric interconnection Estlink 2 and four telecommunications cables. More than seven months later, on August 11, 2025, The Prosecutor’s Office presented positions For aggravated damage and aggravated interference in communications against the captain and two officers of the Eagle S ship, a ship linked to the call “shadow”That the European authorities associate with the elusion of restrictions on Russian crude. On the night of December 25, 2024, the Estlink 2 link stopped operating suddenly and, shortly after, failures were detected in four data cables that cross the same section of the Gulf of Finland. The service did not collapse thanks to alternative routes, but the technical impact was immediate and the authorities opened an investigation focused on the trajectory of a ship that sailed near the affected area. 90 kilometers groove at the bottom of the Baltic. The damage pattern was unequivocal: a prolonged groove in the seabed that coincided with the passage of the Eagle S. The researchers point out that The trajectory of the ship registered in the navigation data flashes with the damaged areas. Police recovered an anchor whose location coincided with the Eagle S route and with the detected groove, information between the evidence that motivated the accusation against the three officers. A cable that transports 650 megawatts under the sea. Estlink 2 is a high voltage electrical interconnection in direct current that joins Finland and Estonia for the seabed. He entered into market operation in December 2013 and was inaugurated in 2014; Its capacity reaches 650 megawatts and its function is to balance the electrical demand between the two countries. After the cut, Fingrid and Elering activated contingencies to maintain stability, and the link returned to the market at 01:00 of June 20, 2025 after repairs. In addition to the power grid, Four telecommunications cables were damagedaffecting part of data traffic between Finland and Estonia. Among the impacted operators are Elisa, Cinia – of public majority ownership – and a cable managed by CITIC. The repair work began days later and extended several weeks; According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the owners have assumed at least 60 million euros in direct repair costs, without relevant impacts on end users thanks to the alternative routed. An old acquaintance under magnifying glass. He Eagle s It is an oil company registered in the Cook Islands that sailed from the Russian port of UST-Luga with oil products and was detected in the vicinity of the affected area. Several media place their property in Caravella Llc Fzbased in United Arab Emirates. The ship appears in the so -called “Shadow Flot”, formed by boats with opaque structures that have continued to operate despite the restrictions. The European Union included Eagle S on its list of ships sanctioned on May 20, 2025. Can Finland judge it? The debate on jurisdiction. The defense claims that the cuts occurred outside the Finnish territorial waters. Because of this, Reuters pointsthe country would not have competence to prosecute the crew. The Prosecutor’s Office appeals to the territorial effect: the consequences occurred in Finland, in the electricity and communications, and that would justify the criminal action. Helsinki’s court now has the task to decide on competition and, where appropriate, set procedural deadlines. The result of the judicial decision will mark the next chapter of the case. If the Court accepts Finnish competition, the process against Eagle S officers will be a milestone in the European response to attacks against critical infrastructure. Images | HTM (Wikimedia Commons) In Xataka | The USA opened the way and China took note: it is updating its fleet with ships that have electromagnetic catapults

Openai has invested billions in chips. His only problem is that he has forgotten something important: cables

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While Openai designs increasingly complex models and promises cities size data centers, a much more terrestrial reality threatens to stop the advance: the electrical infrastructure is not ready for what is coming. At the beginning of the year. Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO) promised, together with Oracle and SoftBank, an investment of 500,000 million dollars in AI infrastructure Under the name Stargate. The announcement, Made at the White House with President Trumphe talked about building 10 gigawatts of data centers on American soil by 2029. However, the start has been slower than expected. According to The Wall Street Journalnot a single formal contract with SoftBank has not been signed, and the first center, in Ohio, is still in the evaluation phase. Meanwhile, Openai has advanced on his own, expanding his alliance with Oracle to develop 4.5 more gigawatts, adding more than 5 GW under construction, As the company itself has reported. A big problem behind. This does not only affect Openai, rather the entire AI sector since no investment or quantity of GPUS can solve the true bottleneck of the sector alone: the electricity grid. As Le Monde explainedtraining models such as GPT-4 consumes dozens of gigawatts -hora, but the real challenge is in the “inference”, that is, in daily use. Each consultation to a model like Chatgpt implies complex calculations that consume energy every second. From the International Energy Agency (IEA), It was warned That the global electricity consumption of data centers could double before 2030, exceeding 945 TWH, more than all Japan today. And there the paradox appears: we can generate more energy, but we have no how to move it. In other words, high voltage lines, transformers, substations, adequate land, permits, technicians are missing. It’s like wanting to fill a city with bottled water, but without having pipes. The project continues. In a last statementOpenai has affirmed that its expansion with Oracle is already creating tens of thousands of jobs in Texas and that the objective of the 10 gigawatts is on its way to being surpassed thanks to new alliances. The Stargate I site, in Abilene, has already begun to operate with NVIDIA GB200 chips. However, As the Wall Street Journal has detailed, Disagreements with SoftBank persist on where to build, how to finance and how to connect data centers to electrical networks that are already saturated. Sam Altman recognized the challenge in an internal memorandum cited by axios: “The thirst for computer science is beginning to tension the supply chain and demands some real creativity.” Other paths: atomic energy. Faced with these limitations, technological giants are looking for solutions outside the traditional electrical system. The answer, for many, is in a surprising return: nuclear energy. Goal has signed a 20 -year contract with Constellation Energy to supply part of its data centers from a nuclear plant in Illinois. Google and Amazon They have also opted for small modular reactors (SMR). Microsoft, meanwhile, will reopen a closed nuclear power plant since 2019exclusively to support your AI infrastructure. Nvidia has not been left behind. In 2024, it invested 650 million dollars in Terrapower, the company founded by Bill Gates that is building the first Natriat reactor, a fourth generation machine that, According to their developersIt will generate electricity by half of the cost of a conventional reactor. The project, which takes place in Wyoming, has a Spanish participation: the public company sees the reactor cover. Without cables, there is no ia. Meanwhile, the number of users continues to grow. Chatgpt reached 800 million active users in April, According to Altman cited in axios. Each of them generates requests, questions, images, instructions, and all that consumes energy. According to Le Mondetasks as simple as writing an email can be more than 7% of a complete mobile phone charge. And generating an image consumes even more. Elon Musk says his company XAI already operates with 230,000 GPUS, and expects 550,000 more. The AI does not rest, but the cables that feed do not supply. Artificial intelligence promises to change the world, but before it will have to face something more basic than any algorithm: the physical laws of electrical systems. There is no needless. There are no servers without energy. And there is no energy without cables. Image | Pexels Xataka | The AI is opening the doors of a radical revolution on the Internet: that we can all create apps without knowing

displays and buries cables up to 3,000 meters deep

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We don’t see them, but Most of the world’s internet traffic circulates through them. The Submarine cables They are very necessary and They have not been few times that have been in the center of conflicts between countries. Some measure thousands of kilometers and connect continents, such as This that will connect Santander with the United Statesbut how do cables of such size unfold? The answer has a name: the Lisa Monna. The ship. The Lisa Monna is a Cable-Laying Vessel, that we could translate by “cable vessel.” Its manufacture began in Romania in 2022 Under commission from the Prysmian company And it cost 250 million euros, although it has not been until this year that its operations have begun. The Mission of the Lisa Monna is to hold wiring in the sea and can reach up to 3,000 meters deep. In figures. The Lisa Monna is 171 meters in length and 34 meters of manga. Currently it is, Together with the Leonardo da Vinci of the same fleetthe world’s largest cable ship. In China, one that reaches 215 meters is being assembled, but for the moment it is not operational (It is expected to start navigating in 2026). It is able to load two cable coils, one of 7,000 and another of 10,000 tons. It has capacity for 120 people, it can navigate for 90 days in a row and reaches a maximum speed of 16 knots. Laying and buried. At first, Submarine cables did not burywhich caused them to suffer more often. Currently the cables are buried in a standard way and it is just what the Lisa Monna does through a simultaneous method of lying and buried. The ship drags a plow that creates a trench in the seabed between 2 and 3 meters deep depending on the type of soil. Here the cable and the earth are deposited refluxes by itself, leaving the protected cable. This system has been baptized as Hydroplowbut it is not the only one that the ship has. It also has several excavating robots that come into action if they find a harder seabed. Centimetric precision. The Lisa Monna is a DP3 ship, that is, it has The most advanced dynamic positioning system which ensures that no failure, whether mechanical, electric or software will make you lose your position: this is crucial in the laying of submarine cables since it requires centimeter accuracy for large distances. To ensure the position has an eight -point mooring system. The fleet. The Lisa Monna is part of a two -ship fleet owned by Prysmian, a multinational company based in Milan. Monna Lisa’s brother was baptized as Leonardo Davinci And they have one more under construction than will be ready in 2027. In April of this year, The Lisa Monna was charged for the first time and It is currently deploying cable on the east coast of the United States. Images | Prysmian will be ready for 2027a | North Korea launched its largest warship with vertical missile system. Then he sank

The big problem of marine wind is cables. Germany has a plan to avoid them

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In the middle of the North Sea, an anchored barge off the German coast does not transport merchandise produces fuel. It is not science fiction: it is the first floating floor that converts wind, seawater and air into energy for the future. Short. In the port of Bremerhaven, Germany floats a rare platform. At first glance it looks like another industrial barge, but in reality it is a floating laboratory that prepares for something unpublished: to manufacture synthetic fuels directly in the sea. More in depth. The project His name is PTX-Wind and is part of the national H2Mare initiative, focused on the production of clean energy on the high seas. It is promoted by the Institute of Technology of Karlsruhe (Kit), together with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Technical University of Berlin. The installation has not yet left the port, but it is already ready for its next phase: operating in real conditions against Helgoland. The purpose of the kit with this test is clear: show that e-combustible in the high seas can be generated, without electricity or land infrastructure. No cables, network or land firm. One of the most striking things of this platform is that it is not connected to any electricity grid. It works totally autonomously, using only wind energy, seawater and the surrounding air. What you get from there transforms it into liquid fuels ready to use, without net emissions of CO₂. According to Professor Roland Dittmeyer, director of the Institute of Microprocess Engineering of the Kit and project coordinator, this installation not only seeks to demonstrate the technical viability of the system, but also learn to climb it for future large industrial platforms. The heart of the barge. Inside, this platform integrates several advanced technologies that, together, form a Power -to-X (PTX) chain (PTX). In other words, they convert renewable electricity into fuels or other chemicals. The giant laboratory has a first phase of Direct air capture (DAC)which extracts carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. After that, desalination to transform seawater into water suitable for electrolysis. That water is divided into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis fed by wind energy. Finally, a synthesis is used Fischer-Tropsch to combine hydrogen with CO₂ and generate liquid hydrocarbons, also known as e-combustible. The entire system has been designed to operate in a modular, flexible and disconnected way of the electricity grid, adapting to the natural intermittency of the wind. This allows maintaining active production even in variable conditions, a key aspect for its replication at an industrial scale. First in your class? While there are other hydrogen production projects on land or offshore wind platforms, none until now had gathered all these pieces in a single floating and autonomous structure. According to Interesting Engineeringthis is the first plant that converts marine renewable energy into liquid fuel without depending on the mainland or electrical networks. The point is that not everything can plug. Today, many sectors already advance towards electrification: cars, heating, even some trains. But there are industries – as aviation, maritime transport or heavy chemistry – that still depend on liquid fuels with high energy density. The e-fuels, like those produced by this platform, They are a neutral alternative in carbon that could replace diesel or kerosene without the need to completely redesign airplanes or ships. And the best: they do not compete for agricultural lands nor consume fresh water. When operating directly in the sea, they take advantage of the wind potential and avoid costly terrestrial infrastructure. According to the Federal Ministry of Investigation of Germany (BMBF)also helps relieve pressure on local electrical networks. Not only diesel. Although for now the main objective is liquid fuels, the team behind PTX-Wind is also investigating other possible production routes, such as Synthetic methane (compatible with current gas networks), The green methanol (useful for maritime transport or chemical industry) and renewable ammonia (It works as a hydrogen bearer or as fertilizer without emissions). The sea as a new energy border. More than a prototype, the PTX-Wind platform represents a scalable and adaptable model for the production of fuels in the high seas. Its modular design would allow to replicate this technology in different coastal areas of the world, creating a distributed network of floating refineries of clean energy. At a time when climatic solutions are urgent and promises often stay on paper, this floating barge is a tangible example that innovation is already out there, literally floating in the sea. Image | Unspash and Kit Xataka | There is a place where Spain is losing a good part of the renewable electricity that generates: the Toledo-Ciudad Real-Granada axis

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