Chint's 1.3 GW Portugal energy bid

A Chinese-backed energy group is trying to license a project in southern Portugal that would be large even by Iberian renewable standards: 1,300 MW of solar and wind capacity, nearly 900 MW of battery storage, 2.1 million solar panels across Alentejo, and 1,868 GWh fed into the grid each year (Observador, Jornal Económico).

Chint has filed a scoping proposal for an environmental impact study covering Portel and Vidigueira. In Portuguese licensing terms, that is the opening move, not an approval. Still, the scale is enough to put the project in the middle of Europe’s awkward energy bargain: the continent wants clean power quickly, but much of the kit needed to deliver it still comes from China.

Batteries change the equation

The solar and wind element alone would make Alqueva-Portel one of Portugal’s biggest renewable schemes. The batteries make it more politically sensitive. The cluster would include 358 storage units with about 895 MW of storage power, taking excess solar output during the day and releasing it after sunset (Observador).

Three new very-high-voltage transmission lines, each between 7.4 km and 8.9 km, would link the sites to the national grid. That is where a straightforward climate project becomes an infrastructure question.

Storage at this scale does more than hold electricity. It helps manage grid frequency and voltage, the quiet mechanics that keep a power system stable. Whoever controls the battery-management software could, in theory, disrupt the grid by releasing or withholding power at the wrong moment.

Chint’s Portuguese ambitions go beyond this one cluster. The company reportedly has a 6.6 GW solar pipeline across Alentejo and 2,520 MW of grid-connection capacity contracted with REN, Portugal’s transmission operator. That is more than 20% of REN’s latest contract list (Jornal Económico).

The price of saying no

Europe’s difficulty is that cutting out Chinese supply would mean moving more slowly and paying more. China controls more than 80% of all key stages of solar panel manufacturing, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Chinese suppliers also provide about 70% of European inverters, the devices that convert solar electricity into the alternating current used by the grid (Boursorama/Reuters).

The dependency is visible beyond solar. Germany imported batteries worth €22 billion in 2025, roughly half from China (Handelsblatt).

Restrictions have a price tag. EU limits on Chinese inverters in publicly funded projects could affect at least 14 GW of new solar capacity, more than a fifth of annual EU installations (Boursorama/Reuters). European-made inverters cost roughly 20-40% more than Chinese equivalents (EnergyNews).

Delay a project such as Alqueva-Portel and Portugal also delays storage capacity that its grid increasingly needs. That is the political trap: the security case for caution is real, but so is the cost of waiting.

The EU has a tool for this. Regulation 2019/452 allows member states and the Commission to review foreign investments that may threaten security or public order (European Commission). But the regulation coordinates scrutiny. It does not hand Brussels a veto. The Commission can raise concerns; Portugal decides.

Member states are already splitting

The member states are not reading this risk in the same way. Germany treats connected renewable assets as possible infrastructure vulnerabilities, with explicit comparisons to the earlier dependence on Russian gas (FAZ).

Lithuania has gone further, giving grid operators the right to disconnect solar plants above 100 kW that do not meet cybersecurity requirements (pv magazine). Spain screens investments while still courting Chinese factories that create local jobs. Hungary moved faster again, attracting €3.9 billion of Chinese FDI in 2025, largely in EVs and batteries, though CATL’s Debrecen battery plant reportedly had only about half its promised workforce two years after opening (Portfolio, HVG).

For Alqueva-Portel, the decisive question is not only who owns the panels or counts the megawatts. It is who controls the operating software, the battery-management systems and the remote-update rights over the project’s 25-year operating life.

Portuguese reporting has set out the scale of the project in detail. It has not yet answered who would sit at the control console. That answer will decide whether this is mainly green investment, or green investment carrying strategic exposure. So far, no one in Lisbon or in the EU institutions is asking that question in public.