Portugal Floats Morocco Cable Plan

Portugal’s energy minister, Maria da Graça Carvalho, confirmed on 6 July that a proposed electricity cable to Morocco remains "on the table." However, the announcement lacks the basic markers of a serious infrastructure project: Portugal has yet to publish a route, a capacity figure, a cost estimate, or a financing plan. Coming just days after the inauguration of a functional interconnector with Spain, the contrast suggests the Morocco cable is currently a tool for diplomatic signalling rather than a concrete energy solution.

The upgrade that exists, and the gate that stays shut

On 2 July, Spain and Portugal opened a new 400 kV link through Galicia, adding roughly 1,000 MW of exchange capacity. This project has named operators, a defined route, and measurable power — the essential components of real infrastructure.

The broader problem for the Iberian Peninsula is not its internal connections, but its isolation from the rest of Europe. Electricity exchange with the continent sits below 3% of installed capacity, far short of the EU’s 15% target for 2030. The bottleneck is the Pyrenees crossing into France. While a submarine link through the Bay of Biscay is intended to address this, the project remains pending. Spain, Portugal, France, and the European Commission are scheduled to meet in September to attempt to accelerate the process.

A cable from Morocco would provide a southern entry point into the Iberian grid, but it does not solve the northern chokepoint. Any power entering from the south would still be restricted by France’s control over the main route into the wider EU market.

What real projects cost: The ELMED benchmark

For a Mediterranean state like Malta, the closest comparison is the ELMED project — the planned cable between Sicily and Tunisia. Unlike the Portugal-Morocco proposal, ELMED is a fully-fledged project with named transmission operators (Terna and STEG), a defined seabed route, and firm financial backing.

The ELMED project is estimated to cost approximately €1.42 billion to provide 600 MW of capacity over 220 km. It has secured €307 million from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility, alongside support from the European Investment Bank and the World Bank. A Portugal-Morocco link would likely be longer and cross deeper waters, driving costs even higher. To date, there is no public analysis explaining who would foot the bill — whether through household electricity bills, EU grants, or congestion revenues.

Black start fixes the wrong problem

Minister Carvalho also highlighted that Portugal now has four plants with black-start capability — generators that can restart independently without drawing power from the grid after a total collapse. While EU rules require operators to maintain this restoration capacity, and it is vital for recovery after a blackout, it does not prevent the collapse itself.

Preventing a grid failure requires real-time services: voltage control, frequency response, and balancing. These mechanisms keep electricity at the correct pressure and rhythm as supply and demand fluctuate. Following the Iberian outage in April 2025, analysis by ENTSO-E (the body coordinating Europe’s transmission operators) found that the primary failure was voltage control, not a lack of generation. Black-start plants are useful for picking up the pieces, but they are no substitute for the services that keep the lights on in the first place.

While Morocco is expanding its renewable capacity with World Bank support, an export cable requires a stable, balanced source grid that is not yet fully realised. Until Portugal provides named operators, a route, and a financing plan, the Morocco interconnector remains a piece of post-blackout diplomacy rather than a documented energy plan.