The Group of Studies on Territorial Planning and the Environment (GEOTA) warned today that the expansion plans for gas networks, in public consultation, contravene the energy transition, and urged the proposals to be rejected.
The development and investment plans for gas distribution networks for 2027-2031 would contravene the electrification and decarbonization trajectory assumed by Portugal and the European Union (EU), the environmental group said in a statement.
The public consultation ends today, and GEOTA asks the Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE) to “issue an unfavorable opinion”, and for the Government to replace the expansion of gas networks with a “national strategy coherent with the objectives of decarbonization, reinforcing investment in energy efficiency, electrification and renewable energies”.
In June, ERSE put the plans of the 11 operators in public consultation, who want to invest 406.8 million euros between 2027 and 2031, of which 249.9 million euros for expansion and densification of the networks, creating 113 thousand new connections.
“It is not coherent to invest in more than one hundred thousand new gas connections when European energy policy points to a target of 46% electrification of final consumption by 2040, and when the Portuguese government itself bets on the electrification of housing,” said Miguel Macias Sequeira, vice-president of GEOTA, cited in the statement.
According to Miguel Macias Sequeira, who is also a researcher in energy and climate at the Center for Environmental Research and Sustainability of NOVA University Lisbon – CENSE NOVA-FCT, “this expansion ties new consumers to a fossil infrastructure for decades and creates the risk that these investments lose usefulness long before the end of their economic life”.
GEOTA criticizes that the use of gas be prolonged in buildings where there are already more efficient electric alternatives, such as heat pumps, and warns that expanding an infrastructure whose use is expected to decline increases the risk of stranded assets and a “tariff spiral”, where fixed costs rise and are shared by an ever-decreasing number of consumers.
According to the environmental organization, the proposed strategy also worsens Portugal’s energy vulnerability.
GEOTA recognizes the potential of biomethane, but warns that the estimated production of 9.1% of gas consumption in 2030 “does not justify the widespread expansion of the networks”.
In the statement, it also defends the creation of a national plan, territorially differentiated and socially fair, for the maintenance and progressive deactivation of gas networks.
