The City Council and Endesa agree on an investment plan to reinforce the electricity grid

The Barcelona City Council has agreed with Endesa on an investment plan with the aim of guaranteeing and improving the electricity supply. This understanding is the result of a coordination table between the two parties created after the supply cuts that this winter have affected 32 points of the city and six districts, coinciding with periods of highest energy demand.

Endesa will invest a total of 43.2 million euros this 2021 in Barcelona. Of this budget, 15.8 million will be allocated to the ordinary maintenance of facilities and 27.4 million will be dedicated to reinforcing the city's electricity grid. These cuts usually occur in low and medium voltage networks and, for this reason, the investment plan pays special attention to improving these facilities.

"This agreement is very good news because we confirm that investments were lacking, but we also believe that how and where these investments will be carried out is also positive. Firstly, they will be carried out in the points where there have been more cuts and, secondly, we will prioritize medium and low voltage to prevent similar episodes from recurring," commented the Councilor for Climate Emergency and Energy Transformation of the Barcelona City Council, Eloi Badia.

Some of the improvements in the network are already underway, such as those in the Raval neighborhood, in Sant Antoni Abat and Salvador Cendra streets, as well as Bernadí Martorell passage and Hospital street. Later, Endesa will broaden the focus to the entire low voltage network of Barcelona to avoid further incidents. In these two phases alone, the company plans to invest more than three million euros in the low voltage network and intervene in 164 points.

The plan also contemplates providing Endesa's infrastructures with the latest technological advances to progressively transition from the current electricity grid to the digital one. New sensors and remote controls will be installed to be able to act more quickly in case of an incident. Likewise, the commitment to the development of smart grids or smart grids stands out, one of the company's priorities to be able to manage new energy uses such as distributed generation, self-consumption or electric mobility.