Galán: “Electricity grids will be a driver of global leadership and competitiveness”

Iberdrola’s Executive Chairman, Ignacio Galán, has called for faster investment in electricity grids during his participation in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. In his view, “Electricity grids will be a driver of global leadership and competitiveness”.

Galán stressed that electrification “is unstoppable” because all new uses — data centres, electric vehicles, heat pumps… — already depend on electricity, and said that global demand will grow by 50% by 2035 and double by 2050. “That requires tripling investment in electricity grids, strengthening clean generation and providing regulatory certainty for investors,” he noted.

In his opinion, it is necessary to transform and modernise many of the grids created over the last century for new uses and to promote new ones to meet growing electricity demand.

The Executive Chairman defended Iberdrola’s ambition in the energy sector. “To do important things you need ambition, vision and capability. I believe we are in the right sector, at the right time, and over our 125 years we have shown that we are capable of achieving the goals we set ourselves.”

Galán recalled that grids are the backbone of the electricity system and warned that, after years of strong investment in new generation capacity, “we now need grids capable of absorbing all that energy and delivering it to consumers and industry safely and competitively”. He also warned that without sufficient grids and interconnections, electrification will not be able to advance.

In this context, Iberdrola’s Executive Chairman welcomed the European Commission’s European Grid Package for focusing on grids and called for the prioritisation of critical projects, faster permitting and adequate remuneration to attract capital to regulated activities that are essential for the transition.

Galán also emphasised the commitment and urgency in the United States to improve electricity grid infrastructure. In fact, states such as New York are talking about tripling their investment in transmission and distribution lines.

During his speech, Galán argued that energy security is inseparable from national security and also called for technological pragmatism: “All technologies matter, but each country must use its natural resources: sun where there is sun, wind where there is wind; it makes no sense to plan against geography”.

The Executive Chairman placed these messages within Iberdrola’s track record — 125 years of history and leadership — and recalled the strategic decision taken more than two decades ago to invest “massively” in grids, renewables and storage, through which the Group increased its size by more than tenfold. Today, Iberdrola is the largest utility in Europe by market capitalisation and is among the two largest in the world, having exceeded a market value of €125 billion.

“Iberdrola is planning investments of close to €60 billion over the next four years, of which more than two thirds will be allocated precisely to the electricity grids sector. To undertake these investments, stable, predictable and incentivising frameworks are required,” he reiterated.