electrical

We thought that AI was going to collapse the electrical grid. The solution is to “unplug” it 18 days a year

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Daily headlines bombard us with the insatiable hunger for Artificial Intelligence, painting a future where data centers will devour our infrastructure. However, reality hides a fascinating irony: the same technology that clutters cables today could be our greatest ally. According to estimates of DeloitteAI will optimize global systems saving more than 3,700 TWh by 2030, almost four times the energy consumed by all data centers on the planet combined. But to get to that stage, you first have to turn on the machines today. And the solution is surprisingly analog. Paweł Czyżak, from the Ember analysis center and one of the most authoritative voices in the European energy transition, sums it up with a simple idea: A data center does not need to operate at full power every hour of the year. In the face of system collapse, the industry’s new survival dogma is clear: “Connect now and operate flexibly.” The heart attack of the network. We have been victims of what we once defined as “tyranny of 24/7”. Algorithms do not sleep and demand uninterrupted supply. This voracity has caused a heart attack in the traditional data epicenters in Europe (the “FLAP-D” markets: Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin), almost completely paralyzing new deployments. The bottleneck is no longer the latest generation microchips; transformers and free electrons are missing. Added to this physical collapse is the bureaucratic one. The European University Institute (EUI) warns that connection queues are a critical funnel: in countries such as the United Kingdom or Italy, the requested capacity exceeds the peak of national maximum demand by more than 10 times. All of this is aggravated by speculative “zombie” projects that block entry to legitimate developers. The obstacles are, as detailed in the recent study by Camus, encoord and Princeton ZERO Laba double wall: there is a lack of cables for day-to-day operations and a lack of clean capacity built to provide backup. Flexibility as a lifesaver. Is it possible to “turn off” part of the AI ​​brain without the system crashing? Yes. A recent trial led by Nebius, Emerald AI and National Grid showed that an AI cluster was able to cut its consumption by 30% in just 40 seconds to relieve the network, keeping critical tasks intact. Even Google already boasts of having reached 1 GW of “demand response” by combining batteries and the ability to move loads between regions. As Czyżak explainsmoving just 5% of the load (the equivalent of a few critical hours per year) unblocks the grid massively. In fact, this strategy would save more natural gas than a country like Denmark consumes in electricity generation, by preventing electricity companies from having to turn on expensive and polluting combined cycle plants to cover demand peaks. For its part, the Camus and Princeton report proposes to scale this with two mechanisms: Flexible connections: The center operates normally 99% of the time, but in the scarce 40 or 70 hours a year of extreme network saturation, it reduces its computing or draws on its own batteries. BYOC agreements (Bring Your Own Capacity): Big tech finances its own clean energy capacity instead of waiting for the state to modernize infrastructure. The combination is magical: it reduces the wait to connect to the network from 7 to just 2 years. For a technology company, this means starting to bill three years earlier, generating net returns of between 1,000 and 4,000 million dollars per site. The citizen will not pay the bill. On a social level, the transition towards this flexible model brings excellent news for the average citizen. The detailed modeling of Princeton’s ZERO Lab confirms that a flexible data center (under BYOC schemes) assumes practically all of the incremental costs it generates to the electrical system. In other words, the billions needed to host the cloud will not be transferred to household electricity bills. On the contrary, by making the most of the existing network instead of building massive new lines, the fixed costs are distributed among more actors. In Spain, organizations such as the CNMC are already applying “flexible access permissions”forcing by law to accept controlled cuts in emergencies to protect the stability of the country. The plug that will rule the world. In the frenetic geopolitical and business race to dominate the future of Artificial Intelligence, the narrative has changed. It is no longer enough to design the fastest microchip or have the most brilliant engineers. Today absolute victory belongs to whoever has a free plug. But rather than desperately burning gas or waiting a decade for governments to bury thousands of kilometers of copper, the industry has found a pragmatic way out. Demand flexibility from Big Tech Not only does it allow them to turn on their servers years earlier; It protects citizens’ bills, squeezes the infrastructure of the 20th century and banishes the dangerous ghost of a Europe forced to relapse into its old addiction to fossil fuels. Image | Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash Xataka | There is no energy for so many data centers and the consequence is clear: half of those planned for 2026 in the US are in danger

Two gigantic submarine cables between Spain and Italy, among the large European electrical interconnection projects

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The European Union is immersed in a full energy transformation at two levels: the transition towards renewable sources and a structural change deep, so that success depends less on each country’s individual generation and more on the ability to move that energy efficiently across borders. In this framework, the European Network of Electricity Transmission Network Operators (ENTSO-E) works on a continental grid that eliminates technical bottlenecks. An example: the energy island called the Iberian Peninsula. The objective is for energy to flow from areas with surplus to others with deficit, preventing it from being trapped without a commercial outlet due to lack of transportation capacity. With that logic, the ENTSO-E just published its complete portfolio of the Ten-Year Network Development Plan 2026 with almost 200 transmission projects, 22 of them completely new. Among these novelties there are two particularly important for the Iberian Peninsula: they connect Spain with Italy. The cables. Apollo Link and Iberia Link are two high-voltage direct current submarine cable projects that would cross the Mediterranean to connect the Iberian Peninsula with northern Italy. They are independent of each other but share the same mission: to create a direct electric highway between an area with great renewable generation capacity such as Spain and one of the industrial regions with the highest electricity consumption in Europe, northern Italy. None of the projects has support from the transport network operators of each state, Red Eléctrica and Terna, respectively, but rather They are initiatives of private investors of Italian origin whose identity has not been revealed. Why is it important. The emerging continental grid is vital for the decarbonization of the continent as it allows the full use of renewable energy surpluses: Spain is one of the leaders in solar and wind energy (Italy stands out in solar, but not so much in wind) and this interconnection makes it possible that when there is excess production in the Iberian Peninsula, that clean energy can supply Italian demand instead of being left without a commercial outlet due to lack of transport capacity. The foreseeable net flow would be predominantly from west to east, although the connection would also allow energy to be imported from Italy in times of shortage on the Peninsula. But for the Iberian Peninsula it is even more relevant: this future east-west corridor allows its surpluses to be evacuated to the rest of Europe, thus ending its limited interconnection capacity. And also something essential: this connection provides security of supply (as evidenced the blackout) and the possibility of coupling markets to reduce electricity prices for the final consumer. Context. The Iberian Peninsula is considered an energy island within Europe. Its interconnection capacity with France round 3,000 MW, far below of the 15% target of installed capacity established by European regulations. And this has consequences: in times of high renewable generation, prices become negative within the peninsula and surplus energy cannot be exported. In times of scarcity, it cannot be easily imported either. This is just one of the projects that seek to end the energy isolation of the peninsula: they are also on the table the Bay of Biscay submarine cable planned for 2028 and included in all PCI lists since 2013. And under construction is a new northern interconnection of Portugal with Galicia which will add an extra 1,000 MW of exchange capacity. On the other hand, the trans-Pyrenean projects in Navarra and Aragon they are still blocked and with no date on the horizon to unclog them. Retail. Some technical curiosities of both cables: Apollo Link is the more ambitious of the two. It consists of an interconnection between Spain and northern Italy with a capacity of 2 GW planned to enter service in 2032. It would implement the most modern standard for long-distance underwater transmission for bidirectional control and minimize losses, bipolar HVDC technology with VSC converters. It would operate with the standard adopted by the European industry of 525 kV, facilitating interoperability. Its capacity allows it to supply several million homes. According to its promoters, it would generate more than 300 million euros annually in net social benefits. Iberia Link shares the same technology and operating voltage, but has a lower capacity: 1.2 GW. What distinguishes it is its length: 1,034 kilometers of submarine cable between southern Spain and northern Italy, which would make it one of the longest underwater electrical links in the world. It has no published entry into service date. Specifications of both cables. TYNDP map Yes, but. That they are included in the TYNDP 2026 is the prerequisite to qualify for the status of Project of Common Interest that opens the doors to community financing and an accelerated regulatory framework, but for the moment the situation of both is “under consideration”, which means that they are in the study phase and do not yet have European regulatory approval: they will have to pass the cost-benefit analyzes of the ENTSO-E to take the first step to materialize (we will know in the last quarter of 2026). And furthermore, they do not have the support of state operators, nor permits or approved layout because they are in preliminary phases. Likewise, the history of blocking similar projects invites caution. But even if they became a reality, these projects would only partially mitigate the electrical isolation of the peninsula: they are only 3.2GW of the 10-15GW of total interconnection necessary to truly influence the European market. In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them In Xataka | The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it Cover | ENTSOE

We had a perfect plan to decarbonize the electrical grid. The brutal consumption of data centers has dynamited it

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The daily headlines multi-million dollar investments announced in new language models and cutting-edge chips. Venture capital investors have pumped more than half a billion dollars into AI startups over the last five years. But, as a revealing analysis warns of TechCrunchthe smart money has begun to change sides: today, the best investment in Artificial Intelligence is no longer software. The reality on the ground has become extremely arid. Putting up walls and stacking servers in a giant data center has become the easy part of the equation. The real wall the tech sector is crashing into is finding the electrons needed to power it. According to a report by the analysis firm Sightline Climateup to 50% of data center projects announced for 2026 could face delays. Of the 190 gigawatts (GW) of capacity the company tracks globally, just 5 GW are under actual construction today. The bottleneck is no longer the microchips. It is access to the electrical network. The tyranny of 24/7. Consumption has run amok at a pace that 20th century infrastructure cannot process. A Goldman Sachs analysis projects that AI will shoot energy consumption of data centers by 175% by 2030. The figures all point in the same direction: the Open Energy Outlook predicts that electricity demand combined data centers and crypto mining will grow by 350% this decade. As a result, the pristine image of the technological cloud is evaporating. Google’s emissions have increased by 48% in the last five years, and Microsoft’s by 31% since 2020. The reason? What is known in the industry as the “tyranny of 24/7”. The algorithms do not sleep and require a continuous and steady power supply; They cannot be turned off simply because the wind stops blowing or the sun sets. Given the lack of mass storage systems globally, the fuel that is covering this urgent gap is not green. It is natural gas, which has returned from retirement as the great structural support of the sector. A global collapse with two faces. The pressure has already broken the market balances. In the PJM region—which supplies 13 eastern US states and has the highest density of data centers in the world—capacity prices went from $30 to $270 in a single auction at the end of last year. As John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy, noted, we are facing a “golden era of energy demand”, but with an insurmountable physical limit: “the new electrons cannot reach the network quickly enough.” This electrical asphyxiation is redrawing the global map, and Europe is the best example. Historically, the European market was dominated by the “FLAP-D” markets (Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin). But the network of these cities is no longer going strong. According to data from Greenpeacedata centers accounted for almost 80% of electricity consumption in Dublin, forcing Ireland to impose a moratorium. The market share of these traditional capitals will fall sharply by 2035causing a mass exodus to the Nordic countries (with unburdened networks and cold climates) and to southern Europe, such as Spain, Greece and Italy, in search of green megawatts. The hardware and network problem. When we scratch beneath the surface of this collapse, we discover that the physical problem splits into two large gaps. First, the machine to generate the energy is missing. Since intermittent renewables are not enough, companies turn to gas. However, gas turbines have become a rare commodity. Three years ago, Siemens Energy executives considered this market “dead”; Today, the factories are so overwhelmed that the delivery times for these turbines can extend up to seven years. Second, the “plumbing” is missing. Once the electricity is generated, the task of taming it within the building falls to the transformers. It is an iron and copper block technology that has barely changed in 140 years. As explained TechCrunchAs servers demand more power, traditional electrical equipment will take up twice as much space as the servers themselves. It is mathematically unsustainable. ‘Smart Money’ changes sides. Against this backdrop, venture capital is pivoting. Big tech companies (Amazon, Google, Oracle) are starting to behave like energy giants, devising alternatives to minimize their dependence on an outdated public grid through hybrid or generation approaches. on site. The solutions are divided into several fronts: The nuclear resurgence: Google has signed a pioneering agreement with Kairos Power to develop seven small modular reactors (SMR) by 2030, and Amazon tried (although regulators temporarily blocked it) connecting a data center directly to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Super batteries: Google is collaborating in Minnesota with the company Xcel Energy and the startup Form Energy to install batteries capable of discharging energy for 100 hours, thus stabilizing the peaks of renewables. Hardware innovation: Dozens of startups (such as Amperesand or DG Matrix) backed by investment funds are developing silicon-based “solid state” transformers, seeking to finally retire old iron and copper to save vital space in facilities. Regulatory surgery: In southern Europe, organizations such as the CNMC in Spain are applying “flexible access permits”, forcing centers to accept cuts in emergencies so as not to collapse the entire country. The paradox: AI as savior of the electrical system. However, the story has a fascinating twist. The same technology that today threatens to burn the cables of half the world could be the one that ends up saving the electrical system. According to the consultant’s estimates Deloittethe application of artificial intelligence to optimize industrial systems and electrical networks will save more than 3,700 TWh globally by 2030. That is, AI will save almost four times the energy consumed by all the data centers on the planet combined. A report of Ember over Southeast Asia (ASEAN) support thiscalculating that integrating AI into the management of its networks will save more than 67 billion dollars and avoid the emission of almost 400 million tons of CO2. But to get to that future of efficiency, you first have to turn on the machines today. And what is at stake is the world economic map. Hosting these centers is … Read more

Spain had a completely saturated electrical grid. And then data centers arrived to blow it up even more

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Imagine a highway on which not a single vehicle can fit anymore. But the problem is not that there is a lack of asphalt, but that the cars do not know how to drive efficiently and keep kilometer-long safety distances. The Spanish electrical grid was exactly that. It had been operating for years at the limit of its administrative capacity, and suddenly, a convoy of trucks of industrial tonnage and voracious appetite has arrived at the access ramp: data centers. These megainfrastructures, pillars of artificial intelligence and the cloud, promise to water the economy of millions, but their brutal need for supply threatened to burst the seams of an already saturated electrical system. To avoid collapse and not let the reindustrialization train escape, the Government has had to react and radically change the technical rules of the game. Cascading capacity collapse. To understand the collapse we have to look at how our way of consuming energy has changed. The energy transition is profoundly reconfiguring the model throughout the national territory. Requests to connect to transportation and distribution networks have skyrocketed. In addition to the electrification of industry and renewable hydrogen, there is now massive consumption associated with data centers for artificial intelligence. The problem broke out when the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) established a “dynamic criterion” to calculate how much access capacity was available in the areas shared by several network nodes. As detailed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in his press releaseapplying this criterion means that a single access requested at a node can cause a “cascading effect that drains capacity in the rest of the nodes that share the area”, blocking requests from dozens of kilometers away. Basically, a large data center asks for passage and, automatically, the system administratively blocks neighboring nodes as a precaution, even if physically the cables have plenty of space. Investments in the air and the ghost of the blackout. The consequences of this traffic jam directly affect the real economy and national security. Real estate and industrial paralysis. The situation is so critical that, as we already mentioned in our previous coverage citing the Asprima employers’ associationlast year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. There are 350,000 homes at risk simply due to lack of electrical power. The risk of an electrical “zero”. The Official State Gazette warns that the increase in installations that are not able to withstand “tension gaps” poses a very high risk. If there is a disturbance and these generators are massively disconnected, exchange flows are produced that are incompatible with Spain’s limited interconnections with Europe. As the diary recalls The Countrythe objective is to avoid at all costs a repeat of massive blackouts like the one suffered by the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025. It is not enough to put more cables. In areas limited by this dynamic criterion, it is no longer possible to enable new capacity simply by investing money in reinforcing the network with “more copper.” The expert in the sector Joaquín Coronado sums it up perfectly: the demand must be 100% active; It must provide flexibility and commit to the stability of the system. The Government’s emergency surgery. To unclog this Gordian knot, the Government and regulators have launched a three-way shock plan: The new Royal Decree of MITECO. The Ministry has been brought to public hearing (until March 16) a standard that updates the technical requirements to connect to the network. The master key is that now it is required that the demands “withstand voltage gaps”, do not introduce adverse oscillations and maintain the quality of the wave. By forcing installations not to disconnect in the event of small disturbances, the number of nodes affected in shared areas is reduced. This simple technical measure could bring out 50% more capacity in about 900 knots of connection to the high-voltage network. The “flexible permits” of the CNMC. To put an end to the binary model (either I give you all the capacity or I deny it), the CNMC has proposed four new types of permits, as we already broke down in Xataka. These range from allowing consumption only in certain time slots, to “dynamic” permissions where the operator can remotely disconnect a data center if there is an emergency on the network. The “technical amnesty” for data giants. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry has been urgently removed the “off-peak” requirement. Previously, to receive aid, you had to consume at night, an absurdity for a data center (which operates 24/7) and for today’s Spain, where solar energy has brought down prices at midday. The citizen cost and the fine print. The Government’s maneuver not only responds to a national emergency, but also places Spain as a pioneer on the continent. The country is anticipating the update of the European network codes, deploying a battery of technical specifications simultaneously that is already considered a milestone worldwide, as detailed The Country. In this deployment, the new regulations also settle a historical debt with energy storage: batteries will finally have their own specific regulatory framework, no longer being administratively treated as simple “generation by analogy” facilities. However, this deep digitalization so that the network supports such a complex mode of operation will not come for free, and the bill for modernization will end up looming in the consumer’s pocket. Forecasts for 2026 They already estimate direct increases in citizen receipts, with a 4% increase in tolls and a not inconsiderable 10.5% in electricity system charges. And while citizens assume the technical cost, the data giants – recipients of this regulatory red carpet – prefer to remain cautious in the face of the eternal Spanish bureaucratic obstacle. The technology sector warns that a key piece of the puzzle is missing: If the Government does not expressly include the National Code of Economic Activity (CNAE) corresponding to “Data Processing” in the official list of sectors entitled to receive the million-dollar electro-intensive aid, all … Read more

its electrical grid claims to be “full” when in reality it is underutilized

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Spain is experiencing an obvious and costly energy paradox. While the country breaks renewable generation recordsits electrical system suffers an administrative “thrombosis” that threatens to stop reindustrialization. The problem is that the system works like a broken bridge: clean energy is born in the so-called “emptied Spain”, but there are not enough cables to take it to the cities and factories where consumption is concentrated. The panic in the sector reached its peak when the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) was forced to postpone three months (from February 2 to May 4, 2026) the publication of the access capacity maps after a critical alert from Red Eléctrica: under the new security criteria, approximately 90% of the network nodes would appear in “red”, that is, with zero capacity. However, the network is not physically collapsed, but administratively “full” and underutilized in practice. To solve this funnel, the CNMC has put on the table a master plan that will change the rules of the game: flexible access permissions. The perfect storm. Getting to this point has not been the result of a single mistake, but rather a cocktail of bureaucratic slowness, territorial imbalances and speculation. As we have already advanced in Xataka, There is a huge gap between administrative times and physical execution: building a substation barely requires a year of work, but its prior processing can take between three and six years. Added to this is that we have installed windmills and solar panels where there is land and resources, but demand is growing in metropolitan areas that do not have sufficient infrastructure, leaving 83.4% of distribution nodes saturated currents. The consequences on the street are devastating. Last year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted, which, according to the Asprima employers’ associationputs the construction of 350,000 homes at risk due to the simple lack of electrical power. And in the midst of the chaos, the bubble: there are access requests for 67,100 MW (half of all the installed power in the country), which makes the regulator suspect the existence of “ghost” projects that hoard nodes only to resell the permits. The end of the binary model. Until now, the electrical system operated under a binary principle: either they gave you firm access, 100% guaranteed, or they denied it. However, as he noted on his social networks the Secretary of State for Energy, Joan Groizard, the current network is underused; In fact, a “smaller” network in the past supported demand peaks much higher than today. This is where the regulatory revolution comes in. The CNMC proposal breaks with the resounding “no” and establishes that, if there is residual capacity at certain times of the day or year, it can be shared. Flexible access capability assumes that supply will not be guaranteed at all hours of the year, maximizing the use of existing infrastructure without immediately resorting to massive investments that citizens would end up paying for. The four ways of flexibility. To articulate this new paradigm, the supporting report and the proposed resolution of the CNMC define four types of permits Flexible access, adapted to different needs: Permission Type 0 (Fixed pattern in Distribution): Applies to installations connected to any voltage level in the distribution network. It allows energy to be consumed following a fixed time pattern (for example, from 00:00 to 07:59 and from 11:00 to 17:59), which represents at least 62.5% of the hours of the year. Outside of these ranges, if the installation consumes power, the network manager (GRD) can disconnect it remotely without prior notice. It is ideal for those who can plan their production. Type 1 Permit (Remote disconnection due to contingency N-1): Designed for distribution installations with voltage greater than 36 kV. The installation meets the requirements under normal conditions (with an expected consumption of 90% of the year), but agrees to be disconnected remotely and without prior notice if any element fails in the substation itself to which it is connected. Type 2 Permit (Dynamic Instructions in Distribution): For voltages greater than 36 kV and powers greater than 1 MW. It is the most technologically advanced, the installation must be able to receive dynamic instructions from the GRD to reduce its load, whether scheduled the day before or in real time. Response times are critical: less than 30 minutes if it is preventive, or less than 3 minutes (immediate) if it is corrective. If you disobey, you will be disconnected. This model will come into force from January 1, 2028. Type 3 Permit (Transmission with automatic reduction): Aimed at demand installations of more than 1 MW connected directly to the transmission network. These facilities are required to participate in the Automatic Power Reduction System (SRAP). In the event of a security alert from the electrical system, the operator (OS) will send a signal and the installation must reduce the power associated with its flexible access to zero effectively and immediately. Winners, exceptions and the bill. This regulatory change has clear winners and some red lines. Storage facilities in demand mode are the perfect candidates, since, by law, they have no guarantee of supply and will have 7 months to request the modification of their permits. At the opposite extreme, the CNMC explicitly prohibits granting these accesses to essential supplies (such as hospitals), to demands that do not support 24 hours without a network, and to collective projects such as urban plans. Modernizing the network to support this “reinforced mode” of digitalized operation will have a direct economic impact. The forecasts for 2026 point to increases in citizen receipts of 4% in tolls and 10.5% in charges to finance system adjustments. For now, the clock is ticking: the public hearing process for agents to send their allegations to the CNMC proposal will end on March 20, 2026. Connect the future. Spain finds itself at an ironic and dangerous crossroads. The country has everything to be the great green battery of Europe, but the lack of cables and excess bureaucracy … Read more

NATO’s notice to shield our electrical grid

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The blackboard hanging behind the bar at Squat 17b, a venue in kyiv, does not list drink offerings, but instead keeps a countdown of the days Ukrainians must endure the harsh winter. Inside, the bar lacks electricity and is illuminated only by candles, while customers shiver on stools drinking beer cooled by the freezing temperatures themselves. This print, described by Financial Timesis the result of an exceptionally harsh winter, with temperatures reaching -20 degrees Celsius. What is emerging in Eastern Europe is a reality that some analysts They already describe how “thermal terror”: the cold turned into a weapon of war. Russia does not merely seek to degrade Ukrainian military capabilities; It deliberately targets substations, power plants and distribution networks to make everyday life physically unfeasible. Heating, electricity and water become strategic objectives. Away from the trenches, the front line has moved to the transformers and electrical substations. In the first weeks of the year, Russian forces They have attacked the Ukrainian energy sector more than 200 times. Russia has launched coordinated waves of up to 40 missiles and 400 drones in a single night, seeking to overwhelm air defense systems. Ukraine lost up to two-thirds of its electricity generation capacity after the first months of bombing. And yet, the infrastructure resists. The new frontier of sabotage Faced with the increase in physical and hybrid threats, the European electricity industry has begun to issue clear warnings. “The last year has shown us that continuing with the current model in Europe is no longer an option,” said Leonhard Birnbaum, president of Eurelectric, in statements collected by Euronews. For the sector, security of electricity supply It has become a strategic issue. At the end of December, Poland’s security systems they detected what his Government described as “the strongest attack against Polish energy infrastructure in years.” The Sandworm group—a unit linked to the Russian GRU—managed to disable remote terminal units (RTUs) at at least 30 energy facilities. These RTUs do not generate electricity, but they allow substations and plants to be monitored and controlled. The attack affected plants cogeneration and systems that connect wind and solar farms with the grid. To achieve this, they used a destructive malicious code known as wiperdesigned exclusively to delete files and permanently render computers unusable. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned thathad it been completely successful, half a million people would have been left without heat in the middle of winter. This use of a wiper marks a qualitative leap: Russia has gone from simple digital espionage to destructive sabotage against critical infrastructure of a NATO member country. Physical espionage is added to the cyber threat under the sea. The Russian spy ship Yantaroperated by the Russian Deep Sea Research Directorate (GUGI), traveled for almost 100 days through the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Their goal was to map and monitor the undersea cables that Europe and North America depend on for their digital communications and energy. These types of covert operations in the “gray zone” seek to measure NATO’s red lines and open the door to possible power or communications outages to force political negotiations. How did we get here? As the historic American general Omar Bradley recalled: “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” For any developed nation today, the most critical logistics system is its energy infrastructure. For decades, Europe built a deeply dependent on imported fossil fuels. Dependency became vulnerability. As he remembered Bloombergthe European Union paid almost €22 billion in Russian fossil fuel imports last year, more than it provided in direct financial support to Ukraine. Changing models has ceased to be a climate issue and has become a pure survival instinct. The old continent has proven that filling its territory with renewable sources and electrifying the economy builds a much more solid structural wall than the old addiction to foreign fossils. And the shield is already working. A look at the data collected by the think tank Agora Energiewende In his latest report, Europe’s energy security on the path to climate neutrality, reveals a brutal cushion: the simple deployment of wind and solar technology during the last five years (2019-2024) avoided having to buy and burn 92 billion cubic meters of gas. However, this transformation introduces new risks. Modern power grids are more digital, more interconnected and more decentralized. According to the same report Agora Energiewendethe challenge is no longer just to ensure fuel supply, but to guarantee network stability, cybersecurity and industrial resilience. More nodes mean more potential entry points for attacks. Added to this is the technological dimension. How to collect Euronewsbetween 70% and 80% of the solar inverters installed in Europe come from Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei or Sungrow. In a highly digitalized system, hardware control also potentially implies software control. Energy as defense policy Faced with this vulnerability, Europe is obliged to treat energy security as a defense policy de facto. A coalition of defense experts, including retired military leaders such as British Lieutenant General Richard Nugee and Dutch General Tom Middendorp, has urged European governments to count low-carbon energy spending against NATO’s target of allocating 1.5% of GDP to critical infrastructure and civil resilience. In statements collected by Guardianretired Lt. Gen. Richard Nugee said, “To have a strong military deterrent we need a resilient homeland. And low-carbon energy is a critical component.” According to Bloombergthis vision is gaining ground in the European strategic debate: the energy transition is no longer just climate policy; is security architecture. The tactical key to this new defense is decentralization. Unlike large centralized plants that are easy targets for missiles, wind turbines and solar panels are much more geographically dispersed, making them significantly less vulnerable to large-scale attacks. To sustain this new model, Euroelectric proposes three fundamental pillars: Better planning: Preparedness frameworks should span the entire value chain, include all energy carriers, and anticipate long-term external threats. Massive flexibility: It will be essential to deploy new storage and demand management technologies to complement the variability of renewable energies. … Read more

Cabo de Gata explodes against an electrical network from the 80s that cannot withstand the wind

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In a place known for its calm, the sound of metal hitting metal became a cry for help this Sunday. Carmen F. Peña, president of the Neighborhood Association of San José and El Pozo de los Frailes, describes the reality of the area: “The blackouts are silent, everything stops and is silent.” However, to break this paralysis, the neighbors decided it was time to make noise. In the words of Peña collected in a local opinion columnthe protest was “the metaphor of a scream”, a sound action to combat the darkness that paralyzes their lives. The scene experienced this weekend reminded, according to the graphic description of the local pressto a “herd of fifty heads of cattle” crossing the population centers; an “infernal melody of protest” composed of pans, pots and saucepans that thundered in unison to send a clear message: satiety is absolute. Although the atmosphere was vindictive and to a certain extent festive, as the chronicles tellthe background was marked by a “deep malaise.” Living disconnected in the 21st century. The problem transcends the inconvenience of not being able to turn on a light bulb; It is a matter of economic survival and security. Juan, spokesperson for the El Playazo de Rodalquilar Neighborhood Association, explained to the press the anguish of isolation: “The last outage was on Thursday and we were without electricity for 24 hours. There is no electricity supply, there is no telephone, we are totally cut off.” This neighbor tells how he tried to call 112 and 062 without success due to lack of signal, forcing them to travel by car to obtain information. The economic impact is direct and devastating. According to the Almeria pressRestaurant 340 had to throw away all its fish after a whole day without power, just after opening for the season. Dataphones stop working and appliances “burn out” due to the constant surges and drops in voltage. The feeling of abandonment is such that the Neighborhood Coordinator describes the situation as “third world” and typical of “the Middle Ages, with candles and oil lamps.” They warn of the real risk to healthIf a dependent person suffers an emergency during a blackout, the lack of telephone coverage prevents them from calling for help. The excuse of the weather versus the reality of the cables. While it is true that the recent storm “Kristin” hit the province With winds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, aggravating the situation and causing poles to fall, residents and the City Council insist that the weather is only the excuse, not the root cause. According to those affectedthere is no need for a big storm; cuts occur with simple wind or rain. This is a structural problem: the electrical infrastructure in the area is “30 or 40 years” old. In addition to the major blackouts, the towns have been enduring “dozens of daily microcuts” for more than a month and the lack of a private television signal for almost two months. The mayor of Níjar, José Francisco Garrido, has pointed out that the problems in centers like Agua Amarga are a “constant in both winter and summer”, which suggests that the network is unable to support seasonal demand. The “great national traffic jam.” What is happening in Níjar is the local symptom of a national disease. Spain faces to a “great electrical traffic jam”: the country has accelerated the installation of wind and solar parks, but the system has hit an invisible wall, the lack of cables to transport that energy. The Spanish electricity grid has administratively “collapsed” and, for practical purposes, is closed to new projects in many areas. This bottleneck explains why solutions take so long. There is a chronic lack of investment in the 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 where the large electricity companies accuse Red Eléctrica of having invested below what was planned, causing the current precariousness. The situation is so critical that the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has had to delay three months the publication of capacity maps due to the panic that 90% of the network nodes will appear with zero capacity. That is to say, although improvements are demanded in Níjar, the national system is experiencing a bureaucratic and physical “thrombosis” that makes any rapid progress difficult. Patience has run out. The Neighborhood Coordinator has started a collection of signatures on the Change.org platform demanding an immediate action plan and supply guarantees. They warn that, if there is no progress, they do not rule out “intensifying the protests with the call for a unitary demonstration.” At the institutional level, the Níjar City Council has sent a formal letter to the distribution company, E-Distribución Redes Digitales SLU (a subsidiary of Endesa), demanding explanations. Sources from the electricity company have indicated to news agencies that a meeting is scheduled this week to detail the reform programs, ensuring that “many of which have begun to be processed.” However, skepticism reigns among the neighbors, given that it has already remained a similar meeting in July 2025 without tangible results. A problem that goes beyond Níjar. The situation in Cabo de Gata is not an isolated case, but appears to be part of a broader pattern of energy poverty and lack of investment in infrastructure in southern Spain. According to journalistic investigationsneighborhoods of Seville and Granada, as well as areas of Almería capital such as La Chanca or Pescadería, suffer daily power outages, especially in summer. In these cases, as in Níjar, residents denounce that “Endesa does not have any maintenance” and that the facilities are obsolete, leaving thousands of people unprotected in the face of extreme temperatures. The difference in Cabo de Gata is that the blow directly affects the waterline of a key tourism industry. As the mayor of Níjar emphasizes“we cannot normalize continuous cuts in a municipality that has a strong dependence on … Read more

lack of electrical capacity

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For decades, the major obstacles to housing construction in Spain have almost always been the same: land, permits, financing or administrative deadlines. Today, a new limit has been added to that list, less visible and much more difficult to overcome. In many parts of the country, promotions with approved planning and projects ready to start are stopped before moving a single machine. Not because of a lack of buyers or because of urban problems, but because they cannot connect to the electrical grid. Without this permit, there is no development or work possible. What seemed like a technical procedure has become an unexpected wall. And it happens more and more frequently. The grid says “no”: the collapse of electrical capacity. The data confirms that this is not a one-time problem. Spain is going through structural saturation of its electrical distribution network, which is blocking new residential developments in much of the territory. According to the electrical employers’ association Aelecin 2024 the urban sector requested around 6.7 gigawatts (GW) of access and connection to the electrical grid for new housing developments. At the end of the year, only a very small part of those applications were approved. Around 40% were directly rejected due to lack of capacity, and another significant percentage was still in process. The traffic jam was not corrected in 2025. On the contrary, according to the employeronly 12% of requests for access and connection to the electrical grid have been granted. In total, around 40 gigawatts have been requested, of which 66% could not be met due to lack of capacity, a fact that reinforces the idea that the problem is no longer temporary, but structural. The diagnosis is clear for the promoter sector. The Association of Real Estate Developers of Madrid, ASPRIMA, estimates that the capacity corresponding to the applications denied in 2024 is equivalent to approximately 350,000 homes throughout Spain that are at risk of not being able to be urbanized, at least within the planned deadlines. The situation did not improve the following year. Although the data disaggregated by sector is not yet known, as El Mundo has detailedthe rejection rate for all applications for network access – including industry, urban planning, data centers or electric mobility – has increased to 66%, compared to 49% the previous year. A problem that spreads throughout the territory. The electricity blockade especially affects large cities, where the demand for housing is higher and residential developments are concentrated. Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia and Seville are among the areas with the highest volume of rejected urban planning applications, as El Mundo has had access. But the problem is not limited to large urban centers. Entire provinces have critical levels of saturation. The capacity maps of the distribution network confirm this x-ray. The latest update shows that more than 88% of electrical nodes medium and low voltage networks are already saturated, which prevents the connection of new residential consumers. Why has it reached this point? The causes of the collapse are multiple and have accumulated over time. One of the main ones is the mismatch between urban planning and electrical planning. As ASPRIMA explainedresidential developments advance on paper without the network being prepared to absorb the new demand, forcing developers to assume unforeseen reinforcements or wait for network expansions that can take years. Added to this imbalance is a simultaneous increase in electricity demand coming from several fronts: industrial electrification, data centerselectric mobility, self-consumption and energy rehabilitation of the housing stock. According to Endesa datamore than 50% of connection requests are being rejected due to insufficient capacity. Regulation is another link in the traffic jam. The current system prioritizes the order of arrival (“first come, first served”), regardless of the degree of maturity of the projects. There are also long and rigid power reserves, as well as points with physically available capacity that are not used due to regulatory barriers, what is known as “idle capacity”. All of this is based on an infrastructure designed for an energy system very different from the current one. As We have pointed out in several analyzes in Xatakafor every euro invested in electricity generation, barely 40 cents are allocated to networks, when the energy transition requires just the opposite: strengthening transportation and distribution. A lot of land, little capacity to connect it. The contrast between potential and reality is striking. Spain has classified residential land with theoretical capacity for up to seven million homes, but only a minimal fraction is in a position to be developed in the short term. According to the Atlas Reanalytics report87% of potential homes lack immediate access to the electrical grid, which limits their viability even in advanced phases of urban management. The average time to transform land into housing exceeds twenty years in most provinces. In other words, the problem is not just how much land is available, but what infrastructure goes along with it. Unlocking the bottleneck. Given this scenario, ASPRIMA has prepared a report with 16 measures to unlock thousands of homes through regulatory and operational changes in the electrical infrastructure. The proposals are grouped into five large areas: network planning, optimization of existing capacity, administrative streamlining, certainty in the execution of infrastructure and review of cost distribution. From the electricity sector they agree that the problem requires an urgent response. Aelec, together with Deloitte, calls for more investment in networksmore advance and flexible planning and a stable regulatory framework that facilitates the financing of new infrastructures. It also proposes taking advantage of underused capacity in the transportation network and accelerating permits and reinforcements. An impact that goes beyond construction. The saturation of the electrical network not only affects the promotion of new housing. It also threatens electrification and improving the efficiency of the existing residential stock. Today, the residential sector concentrates the 18% of final energy consumption and continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels for air conditioning. Without a network capable of absorbing new demand, it will be difficult to deploy technologies such as … Read more

The US electrical grid does not support so many data centers so they have had an idea: disconnect them to avoid blackouts

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One third of all data centers in the world They are in the US and that is putting a huge burden on the electrical grid. One of the consequences that consumers are noticing is the price increases on the invoice, But electricity operators already foresee another problem: blackouts. What is happening. They tell it in WSJ. The US power grid is beginning to become strained, with grid operators expecting blackouts during periods of high demand. The solution they propose to avoid this is to make data centers disconnect from the network and use their own energy reserves temporarily. The technology companies have not been amused and talk about “discriminatory measures.” Why is it important. In 2023, data centers already consumed 4% of all the country’s electricity and the forecasts are that by 2028 that percentage will increase to 12%. The electrical grid is not prepared to support so much demand and, although it is already expanding, the pace of construction of new data centers is faster. Network operators face a difficult dilemma: powering data centers while maintaining supply to consumers. ‘Kill switch’. PJM Interconnection It is the organization that oversees the energy market in the Midwest, where they have already suffered from the problem of price increases. The concern that blackouts will occur is on the table and PJM has proposed that technology companies create their own energy sources or accept that their supply will be cut off if the network becomes too saturated. They are not the only ones who have raised something like this. With demand expected to double by 2035, Texas passed a law last year that contemplates a ‘kill switch’ that allows large consumers, such as data centers, to be disconnected at times when the network is under “extreme stress.” What the technologies say. As we said, the companies that own these data centers have not been very happy with the proposal. The Data Center Coalitionof which companies such as Google, Microsoft and AWS are part, have stated that the proposal is discriminatory since data centers need a reliable and stable network. They also warn that depending on their own energy reserves could have a negative environmental impact, by forcing them to use solutions such as diesel generators. Waiting times. There is an intermediate scenario in which technology companies can obtain benefits if they accept these conditions. As the electrical infrastructure does not support so much demand, data centers have to wait several years to be connected to the network, normally between 3 and 5 years, although there have been cases up to 8 years. Southwest Power Pool, the grid operator in Texas, has offered data centers a deal: give them access to the grid sooner in exchange for agreeing to be disconnected during times of high demand. According to a recent study Funded by Google, data centers that have more flexible connections (i.e., those that build their own power sources and accept temporary disconnections) typically connect to the grid several years faster than those that do not. Bring your own energy. Despite the reluctance towards that off button, generating your own energy is the most realistic solution and the one towards which the industry seems to be moving. Google recently bought an electrical company in order to obtain its own energy. Others big tech Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle or xAI are also exploring create your own energy solutions such as natural gas and solar panels. Image | Google In Xataka | Drastically reducing data center consumption is crucial for AI. And China has had an idea: submerge them in the sea

Wall Street has turned on the spigot of infinite money for AI. They have forgotten a small detail: the electrical network

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In that equation that the world is trying to solve with AI, there is a half that not many people have noticed: debt. Behind every AI-generated chat and video is a gigantic network of data centers, and those data centers are being financed with a mountain of borrowed money. And therein lies the problem. In what is borrowed. Debt and more debt. According to recent datathe issuance of secured debt linked to data centers in the United States is estimated to be $25.4 billion by 2025. It is 112% more than the previous year. If we add up all the complex financial instruments (known as asset-backed securities (ABS) and commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBSS)), the snowball is already huge: there are almost $49 billion tied to these securities. Bonuses for everyone. Here there are not only startups asking for loans, no. The technology giants that are setting up these infrastructures – the so-called hyperscalers – are also taking advantage of this mechanism. Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Oracle or Meta have rediscovered the bond market as a source of financing. Better to spend what is not mine. They all have huge amounts of money, but instead of spending their own cash, They have raised 100,000 million dollars in debt issues so far this year. The goal: buy thousands of GPUs and build data centers before the competition. What are you doing, Oracle? If there is a company that embodies the vertigo of this excessive bet, it is Oracle. The company created by Larry Ellison has committed to meeting a Pharaonic $300 billion deal with OpenAI. That has forced it to become the largest issuer of corporate debt (outside the financial sector). The numbers are scary: your total debt has grown to 111.6 billion dollarswhile its cash has dropped by 10,000 million. Citi estimates they’ll need to borrow another $20 billion to $30 billion every year (every year!) for the next three years just to keep building. excessive ambition. There are also examples of startups that are exploiting this facet. One of the clearest is the one from CoreWeavea company famous for renting computing capacity for AI. The company has secured credit lines of $2.5 billion backed by leading investment banks such as JPMorgan. The market message seems clear: “if you’re going to build for AI, here’s the money.” How to get a 30-year mortgage. Analysts of all kinds have been keeping the fly behind their ears for some time, and one of the latest Moody’s reports is a good example. Concrete buildings are usually financed with terms of 20 or 30 years, but the technology inside (such as AI chips) changes radically every 3 or 4 years. Does it make sense to go into debt three decades from now for a technology that evolves so quickly? cheap money. Investors are also agreeing to charge minimal interest, just 1% above what the safe US public debt pays, when they assume that risk. It’s a worrying classic sign of euphoria. There is so much money wanting to enter the sector that those who lend it have lowered their guard and demand very little return for their risk. They firmly believe in the promises of AI while increasingly more analysts warnhorrified, that we are facing an “irrational exuberance.” Having money is no longer enough. All this is already scary, but the real bottleneck for expansion is not even capital or chips, but the electrical grid. As Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, pointed out, there is no power for so many chips. The situation is so worrying that a Deloitte study indicated in a study that there are a seven-year waiting line to connect some data center projects to the electrical grid. And if companies want to obtain financing, they need have guaranteed electricity supply for your data centers. If there is no plug, there is no loan. Big Tech looks for electrons. At OpenAI they already warned of the problem months ago when talking about the “electron gap” describing electrons (energy) as the new oil. Almost all the major companies in the industry are making a move. Google has signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to be delivered 1.5 TWh of electricity over the next 15 years, and Meta did something similar with Treaty Oak Clean Energy to get 385 MW of its solar plants in Louisiana. The bubble before the big question. All of this further increases the fear that the AI ​​bubble will end up bursting in a big way. Meanwhile, the big unknown is whether the demand for artificial intelligence will be capable of paying the immense electrical and financial bill that it is signing today in 5 or 10 years. The credit party continues. In Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

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